Politics French elections

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Sorry I don't know why the previous thread won't let me save pictures, so I put them here.

All of the above Chinese foods are not eaten in China. Some of the vegetables or seafoods are not found up there. I think when different cultures met, some food cultures can be transformed.

I think it would be too hard in Scandinavia though. @ Angela, I don't think France or Belgium have better welfare than Scandanavia, I think the muslims cannot see themselves living there with that kind of weather or foods.

My father's friend went to Finland once with his family. Once is enough he said, the people are nice and things but there is nothing to eat. They eat things like bear meat, white eagle meat, reindeer meat, and a lot of smoked fishes especially salmon.

I think there are a lot of other people from various cultures who like French foods, the Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, people from various South American countries etc. I had never heard of any of those who like Finnish foods for example.

Wait, now they are showing up....

nobody in France or in Europe tries to make the Muslims eat porc
most schools now offer alternative porc-free meals
often they even ban porc altogether, much to the discontent of the autochtone Europeans who like porc
 
It's about education and most importantly, the religion.

That was my point. Even coming exactly from the same country, Muslim vs Jewish Maghrebi immigrants have completely opposite successes at integrating French society. The Jews are so well integrated that they thrive at any job and are barely seen as outsiders at all. They have become 100% French. Their Muslim counterparts seem even less integrated now, when some of them are regularly clashing with the police, burning cars and conducting terrorist attacks like never before. Those who fare the best are generally the least religious. I know some Moroccan Muslims who are educated, have good jobs and are well integrated, but they are unfortunately a minority.
 
It is not about the nationality.

Were the Turks in UK and USA assimilated?

17952880_1437383599707526_2246902592740621064_n.jpg


Stop Turkish Assimilation in USA :grin:


Boreas
ok I think you are the only one and you got better what I said,
 
nobody in France or in Europe tries to make the Muslims eat porc
most schools now offer alternative porc-free meals
often they even ban porc altogether, much to the discontent of the autochtone Europeans who like porc

I was responding to Coriolan's response. His definition of French is some sort of white French people who had never been overseas and do not accept any changes. I am not really saying that French is making Muslims eating pork. What I am telling him is that the definition of French culture can vary from person to person just like the definition of a Chinese culture.

My friend who lives in Lorraine says French do eat cheesecake, but my friend in Cambrai says they do not.

Muslims may love France but I really don't think they love the French. French lifestyle and culture this the antithesis of how a good Muslim should live. They are sexually liberated, irreligious, drink wine and eat pork sausages. That's why the tensions run so deeply. The hate and intolerance is mutual. The French orange just afraid of Muslim terrorist. They have experienced Muslim youths burning thousands of cars, verbally or physically assaulting them in the street, and threatening to destroy their liberal values by imposing Sharia law in the country. There is no love either way between the two parties.

Le Pen's mistake was to take an anti-EU stance. If she had been more mainstream for the economy, she could have been elected president. What French people want is someone who will improve the economy and get rid of the Muslims. Le Pen is just not credible for the economy. That's her main weakness.

Sexually liberated yes, definitely, irreligious yeah, drink wine yeah, eat pork sausages hmmm should better say they eat cheese.

In Alsace there is a dish called choucroute, which is usually eaten with pork. I had eaten a fish version of it in their famous local restaurant.
 
Francophone Muslims go to France and French speaking countries, Anglophone Muslims go to Britian. They attract people from their ex empires for language reasons as a matter of convenience...and not only Muslim ones.

Yes and no. After the period of colonisation there is a period of decolonisation where their ex colonies went to the countries who colonised them to seek a better life. Colonisation made the countries being colonised often very poor and the countries that colonised them very rich.

Now, I knew a bunch of Koreans and Thais who were obsessed with the French.
Let’s skip the Thais because they are very poor, and people most likely will think white marriages which defeats my point.

South Korea is not very poor, but they suffered from political threats from the North. You could analyse it this way and say that the South Koreans went to overseas to escape their political instabilities.

I knew a South Korean girl. She came to France because she worked with a Thai model that is half French. For her this Thai model was very pretty. She became obsessed with her, and wanted to be like her. I met her while studying in French language school. She told me that the French system was too good and that she wanted to be married to a Frenchman, so that she could enjoy all of France’s beauty.

In fact every time I told people this story, they say that she wants to be me. As I am also East Asian, she thinks we are the same.

Now, as I’ve explained in this forum I am from Australia but born in Malaysia. When I studied French the language pair had always been French/English. However due to my Asian phenotype, while I was at the French language school, the Asians wouldn’t stop following me around. They just refused to understand studying together did not work for us.

I hung around with Americans or other Anglophones as well because I spoke English. Then all these Ukrainians, Koreans, Thais etc would start to complain that we got to speak in French because they didn’t understand. However, they were a bunch of hypocrites; they spoke in their languages we didn’t understand, and we had to accept that?! Yet those loved the idea of hanging around me because they thought it was cool and they got to learn English. They also criticised people making groups speaking English that they could not join and complaint of discrimination.

Later on, the group split because we all went to different universities. That Korean girl failed to get herself a French husband or a job. She repeated her degree twice to prolong her stay in France hoping to get what she wanted but failed again.

South Korea was not a French colony.
 
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are there large Turkish communities in the USA?
Erdogan campaigns there where the Turkish population is most dense, Germany, Holland, Belgium
he fills them with some kind of fascist pride and tries to export the controversy and divide that is within Turkey to those countries
and so he prevents assimilation, which should be the duty of every one living in a host country (upto a certain level)
Bicicleur, you have to admit the problem is not just on one side. The U. S. is just more welcoming and tolerant of immigrants, which makes assimilation a more attractive option. Part of that vote is based on bitterness. Who can blame them when they've been attacked and even burned out not long ago.

We have no problems with our Turkish families. The families are involved with the school; no burka or hijab; the girls go on to college etc. The only difference I can see is the insistence that the children date only Turks, but the Greeks and the Jews try that too,with less success.
 
Bicicleur, you have to admit the problem is not just on one side. The U. S. is just more welcoming and tolerant of immigrants, which makes assimilation a more attractive option. Part of that vote is based on bitterness. Who can blame them when they've been attacked and even burned out not long ago. We have no problems with our Turkish families.

Turks are probably the least problematic Muslims in Europe along with Muslim Indians, Malays and Indonesians. I personally know many Turks in Belgium and have friends among them (well, usually Turkish expats rather than economic immigrants). It seems much easier for them to integrate because Turks are generally less religious than North Africans, and their character/lifestyle is often more compatible with that of Europeans. I don't think any of the terrorist attacks (successful or prevented) in Europe over the last 10 years included Turkish extremists. In fact I have heard more often of native West Europeans converting to Islam and joining ISIS in Syria than of any Turkish resident in Europe being linked with ISIS or other terrorist group. There is really no comparison. I am not surprised that there is no problem with Turkish families in the US. Even Arabs in the US are very different from those in Europe. Americans got mostly educated and reasonably wealthy Christian Arabs from the Levant, while Europe got the poorest, least educated, most religious Muslims from the Maghreb. Two worlds apart. It would be like comparing an upper-middle-class White New Yorker with a lower class hillbilly from a trailer park in the Appalachians. Both may be White Americans, but very different kinds of White Americans.
 
Turks are probably the least problematic Muslims in Europe along with Muslim Indians, Malays and Indonesians. I personally know many Turks in Belgium and have friends among them (well, usually Turkish expats rather than economic immigrants). It seems much easier for them to integrate because Turks are generally less religious than North Africans, and their character/lifestyle is often more compatible with that of Europeans. I don't think any of the terrorist attacks (successful or prevented) in Europe over the last 10 years included Turkish extremists. In fact I have heard more often of native West Europeans converting to Islam and joining ISIS in Syria than of any Turkish resident in Europe being linked with ISIS or other terrorist group. There is really no comparison. I am not surprised that there is no problem with Turkish families in the US. Even Arabs in the US are very different from those in Europe. Americans got mostly educated and reasonably wealthy Christian Arabs from the Levant, while Europe got the poorest, least educated, most religious Muslims from the Maghreb. Two worlds apart. It would be like comparing an upper-middle-class White New Yorker with a lower class hillbilly from a trailer park in the Appalachians. Both may be White Americans, but very different kinds of White Americans.

I agree with all of that, Maciamo, yet the voting profile is still different, and I think part of it is that Turks have never been treated here as they have been in Germany. The immigrant experience is different here, even for Italians. I know because I've lived it. It was very different and far less pleasant for my cousins in Switzerland.
 
Bicicleur, you have to admit the problem is not just on one side. The U. S. is just more welcoming and tolerant of immigrants, which makes assimilation a more attractive option. Part of that vote is based on bitterness. Who can blame them when they've been attacked and even burned out not long ago.

We have no problems with our Turkish families. The families are involved with the school; no burka or hijab; the girls go on to college etc. The only difference I can see is the insistence that the children date only Turks, but the Greeks and the Jews try that too,with less success.

the US is still a young nation with vast territories and resources, founded by people with an open mind
people in the US are open minded and mobile
it is still the land of oportunity for every one

Europe has the burden of a long and complicated history
most people are not mobile and many are jealous of succesful people
I think you will recognise this with some of your relatives in Italy too

immigration policy is completely different
the US choses its immigrants
they must be mulitlingual or English speakers
they must have the proper skills to make it in America
when they come to America they know that they will have to rely on themselves and their own skills
they also know that if they make it, they will be respected

political correctness has manipulated some false feeling of guilt upon the European administrators
they allow immigration for the wrong reasons
they think that everybody is entitled to the same rights and material comfort as the Europeans
they attract the wrong people, often people that even can't make it in their own native country
many of them are illiterate, more of them speak only their native language and are not used to meet strangers

yesterday it was in the news : many (?) Syrians, even some that are granted asylum in Europe go back to Syria
again they have to rely on human trafickers, because Turkey don't allow them to cross Turkey to get back into Syria
they take the plane to Greece and from there they are smuggled into Turkey by human traffickers
these people interviewed realise that because of the language they can't get a job and they find it hard to learn the language of their host country
they are dissapointed because things are not as they were promised by the human trafickers who brought them into Europe and now they are homesick
I ask you, if they are unable to assimilate and if it is safe enough for them to return home, why were some of them granted asylum in the first place?
 
I agree with all of that, Maciamo, yet the voting profile is still different, and I think part of it is that Turks have never been treated here as they have been in Germany. The immigrant experience is different here, even for Italians. I know because I've lived it. It was very different and far less pleasant for my cousins in Switzerland.

Germany and Switzerland aren't France. AFAIK, France is one of the most welcoming countries for foreigners in Europe. There may be tensions with Muslims now, but otherwise a huge proportion of famous French people are of foreign origin. I listed a few here. There are especially lots of French people of Italian, Spanish, Polish, Ashkenazi Jewish, and Armenian descent. The French government has passed a series of laws that makes it illegal to make statistics based on ethnicity or religion to prevent discrimination. That is in the spirit of the values of égalité and fraternité of the French Revolution, but also because the French are so ethnically mixed themselves (Gascons, Bretons, Alsatians, Provençals, etc.).

Germany and Japan were two countries that were so preoccupied with racial purity and superiority that it eventually led to WWII. Japan remains to this day a country where it is very difficult to emigrate, especially if one isn't East Asian. Foreigners make up only 1.5% of the Japanese population, and 95% of them are East Asians or 2nd/3rd generation Japanese from South America. Westerners, South Asians, Middle Easterners and Africans only represent 0.1% of the population. Although Japan like to describe itself as a hospitable country for tourists, Westerners who live in Japan are frequently harassed by the police for no reason. I should know, it happened to me. I was asked for my ID card and bicycle registration 4 times in a single month at one point, and I was clearly only targeted because I didn't look East Asian. The police only asked me, the only gaijin around, in the crowded streets of Tokyo.

With that in mind, I don't think even Muslims can complain about their treatment in Germany, a country that was more intolerant of foreigners than Japan until 1945. Germany has made tremendous progress toward integrating foreigners. They even changed the nationality law from jus sanguinis to jus soli, mostly to give the right to second and third generation Turkish immigrants to claim German citizenship. In a culture that has long defined itself by its ancestry, that's quite a big step. In contrast, Japanese people have changed very little in their conception of who should be recognised as Japanese since 1945. Most still consider that Japanese born abroad aren't real Japanese, even if they were born of two Japanese parents and are fluent in Japanese.

As for Switzerland, it has been one of the most secluded countries in European history, one where other countries have traditionally been kept at arm's length and seen with suspicion. Even today a majority of Swiss are wary of entering the European Union, despite being surrounded by it. Swiss nationality laws are some of the strictest in the world. It's not surprising that attitude to outsiders is less relaxed than in the US or France.
 
the US is still a young nation with vast territories and resources, founded by people with an open mind
people in the US are open minded and mobile
it is still the land of oportunity for every one

Europe has the burden of a long and complicated history
most people are not mobile and many are jealous of succesful people
I think you will recognise this with some of your relatives in Italy too

immigration policy is completely different
the US choses its immigrants
they must be mulitlingual or English speakers
they must have the proper skills to make it in America
when they come to America they know that they will have to rely on themselves and their own skills
they also know that if they make it, they will be respected

political correctness has manipulated some false feeling of guilt upon the European administrators
they allow immigration for the wrong reasons
they think that everybody is entitled to the same rights and material comfort as the Europeans
they attract the wrong people, often people that even can't make it in their own native country
many of them are illiterate, more of them speak only their native language and are not used to meet strangers

yesterday it was in the news : many (?) Syrians, even some that are granted asylum in Europe go back to Syria
again they have to rely on human trafickers, because Turkey don't allow them to cross Turkey to get back into Syria
they take the plane to Greece and from there they are smuggled into Turkey by human traffickers
these people interviewed realise that because of the language they can't get a job and they find it hard to learn the language of their host country
they are dissapointed because things are not as they were promised by the human trafickers who brought them into Europe and now they are homesick
I ask you, if they are unable to assimilate and if it is safe enough for them to return home, why were some of them granted asylum in the first place?

Generally, I agree, Bicicleur. However, we have millions of illegal immigrants who don't speak English, have no skills, and had no health screening or criminal background checks. Some of them are members of criminal gangs before they even arrive here. Yet, half the country won't even agree to turning over convicted felons for deportation. As I explained during the election, mass deportations are out of the question in the U. S. It's not Europe.

Btw, there's no requirement that immigrants speak English. My parents didn't speak a word of it when they arrived. Asylum seekers aren't screened for much of anything.

I'm sorry, but assimilation is a two way street. If you're treated with respect, acceptance, and even friendliness from day one it's much easier to let go of the past.

This is a list of notable Turkish Americans. Now, many of the academics came here for research purposes, but most are just descendants of immigrants. I didn't even know some of them had a Turkish background until I read it here yesterday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Turkish_Americans

I was particularly surprised by the singers Neil Sedaka and Edie Gorme. I assumed he was Jewish of some sort and she was Italian.

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I thought her husband and singing partner was Italian. I looked it up and he was Jewish. So I was wrong twice. :)
See, no one cares.

Steve_lawrence_eydie_gorme.JPG


@ Maciamo, France is indeed a completely different case. As for Switzerland, after my experience near Zurich as a teen-ager visiting some cousins I've never been back and I'll never set foot there again. It's the only time in my life I've ever been disrespected because of my ethnicity, and all because I addressed the postmaster in Italian. Stupid me, I thought I was showing respect by using one of the three official languages. From what I've heard Germany is as bad or worse. I'll never go there either, nor do I buy products from either country.
 
It's the only time in my life I've ever been disrespected because of my ethnicity, and all because I addressed the postmaster in Italian. Stupid me, I thought I was showing respect by using one of the three official languages. From what I've heard Germany is as bad or worse. I'll never go there either, nor do I buy products from either country.

Is it the only time?
I guess your relatives in Switzerland also had some bad experiences.
Otherwise I don't get it.

I can tell you I've had the same experience once, and it was in Sienna, Tuscany.
But I don't draw any conclusions from that. Those that disrespected me and my wife were just stupid people.
 
Is it the only time?
I guess your relatives in Switzerland also had some bad experiences.
Otherwise I don't get it.

I can tell you I've had the same experience once, and it was in Sienna, Tuscany.
But I don't draw any conclusions from that.

Disrespect strictly and only because of my ethnicity? Yes, it was the one and only time in my life. True, I've never been to Germany. Sorry, Bicicleur, but the bad treatment meted out to Italian immigrants in Germany and German speaking Switzerland is a fact.

I'm surprised you were treated badly in Siena strictly because you're Belgian. The only terrible reaction I've ever seen against northern Europeans is when ex- World War II German soldiers brought their families on vacation to the villages where atrocities were committed. I don't know what they expected; it showed a singular lack of sensitivity even if they personally were innocent. Did they think you were German?

A woman I know wanted to live in her father's Ligurian town for a while after she retired. She had to give it up because the old women were just brutal to her German husband. Needless to say, I don't excuse this behavior. As that generation dies it will end.
 
Disrespect strictly and only because of my ethnicity? Yes, it was the one and only time in my life. True, I've never been to Germany. Sorry, Bicicleur, but the bad treatment meted out to Italian immigrants in Germany and German speaking Switzerland is a fact.

I'm surprised you were treated badly in Siena strictly because you're Belgian. The only terrible reaction I've ever seen against northern Europeans is when ex- World War II German soldiers brought their families on vacation to the villages where atrocities were committed. I don't know what they expected; it showed a singular lack of sensitivity even if they personally were innocent. Did they think you were German?

A woman I know wanted to live in her father's Ligurian town for a while after she retired. She had to give it up because the old women were just brutal to her German husband. Needless to say, I don't excuse this behavior. As that generation dies it will end.

There was no reason to asume we were German, and even then it would be no excuse.
We were the only non-Italians in the queue and we look northern European.
 
There was no reason to asume we were German, and even then it would be no excuse.
We were the only non-Italians in the queue and we look northern European.
You're quite right. I apologize for the behavior of my countrymen on that occasion.
 
are there large Turkish communities in the USA?

100.000 voter in USA and just 34.000 gave vote

1.490.000 voter in Germany and 600.000 people gave vote.

The main difference is brain migration and worker migration.

Bicicleur, you have to admit the problem is not just on one side. The U. S. is just more welcoming and tolerant of immigrants, which makes assimilation a more attractive option.

Totally agree.
 
You're quite right. I apologize for the behavior of my countrymen on that occasion.

it's ok

as I told you, these were just a few stupid people
it was just a single experience, not representative at all, it didn't happen to me any where else
 
@ Maciamo, France is indeed a completely different case. As for Switzerland, after my experience near Zurich as a teen-ager visiting some cousins I've never been back and I'll never set foot there again. It's the only time in my life I've ever been disrespected because of my ethnicity, and all because I addressed the postmaster in Italian. Stupid me, I thought I was showing respect by using one of the three official languages. From what I've heard Germany is as bad or worse. I'll never go there either, nor do I buy products from either country.

I don't know what he could have said that was so disrespectful, but it is unfortunately pretty common all over Europe, and indeed all over the Old World (Eurasia and Africa) for people to make fun or disrespect people of other ethnicities or linguistic groups. I have travelled in over 50 countries on all five continents and found this attitude everywhere except oddly in the Americas (but that is also the continent where I spent the least time with Africa). Perhaps that's because in the Americas national identity is not linked to ethnicity, as people are mixed from all over the world.

Even in Belgium it is very common (esp. among the lower class to middle-middle classes) to make fun and make disparaging jokes about people on the other side of the linguistic border. As a child I would hear jokes about Flemish people every week at school, which other kids heard from their parents. That's the kind of jokes that one would expect from early 20th century racist propaganda, comparing them to pigs or stuff like that. Things are tamer nowadays, or maybe it's just because I don't frequent people from lower social levels any more. It happens both ways between linguistic groups, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same was true in Switzerland. I am sure German speakers like to crack silly jokes and throw ethnic slurs about French and Italian speakers, and vice versa. I have always found such jokes petty, narrow-minded and intolerant, but that's unfortunately how a lot of ordinary people are (just look at the share of people who voted for Brexit in the UK because they didn't want Frogs and Krauts in their country anymore, as they would say). Wikipedia has two lists dedicated to ethnic slurs (here and here) as if they couldn't fit everything in one page.

All East Asian countries have (mildly) derogatory terms for Westerners/foreigners/outsiders. It is Gaijin in Japan, Laowai/Guizi/Gwei lo/Sai Yan in China, Farang in Thailand, Ang Mo in Singapore, Buleh or Orang Putih in Malaysia and Indonesia...

I have lived four years in Japan and the Japanese use the word gaijin (literally 'outsider') all the time to refer to Westerners. Children in the street point at the foreigners giggling and saying 'Gaijin, gaijin!". When entering a shop even adults would sometimes exclaim 'ah, gaijin da!' ("oh, a foreigner), as if they thought we don't understand them. Often it is pretty innocuous, but not always. There is almost always a feeling of exclusion ("you are different!", "you are not one of us") even when there is no hate or malice behind it. Once a salesman rang at my door in Tokyo and when I opened his face changed, taking a mortified expression and he just said 'ah, shimatta, gaijin da!' ("oh shit, a foreigner!"), once again completely oblivious to the fact that I could understand him, as if there was no way one of those stupid foreigners could understand Japanese.

I have noticed over the years that in every country these terms of exclusions, ethnic slurs and jokes come from a mixed sense of anxiety toward the unknown and a desire to feel superior to the outsiders who "invade" our home country. The nastiness behind the comments depend on the country's culture and the person's social class and character. The Japanese are generally too kind and polite to say anything really shocking besides throwing the word gaijin all the time to make you feel excluded.
 

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