A new Open Society Foundations research project on Europe’s white working class provides a welcome corrective to those who champion the class as a victim of immigration while colluding in the abandonment of working-class areas. In his classic text examining production processes Labor and Monopoly Capital, published in 1974, Harry Braverman showed how ‘poverty and
Matt Carr reflects on the complicity of Britain and France in the horrific situation for migrants in Calais. For millions of British tourists, Calais is a gateway for continental driving holidays and the pleasures of the Summer. For others it’s a city of designer shops, of the massive Euroshopping mall Cité Europe, where the Daily Mail and P&O
A new book on Belgium, Guantanamo chez nous?, is an important contribution to the analysis of racism and the war on terror in Europe. It would be hard to find anyone in the UK who has not heard of Abu Qatada. But how many people know that he was recently acquitted of terrorist charges in Jordan?
A timely pamphlet aimed primarily at French trades unionists provides an opportunity to reflect on the FN’s growing appeal to working-class voters. ‘If we don’t stop the waves of immigration, in ten years whites will become a minority in France.’ ‘If we had real freedom of expression we would be able to say anything, including
Racist violence in Europe is sustained by cultures of impunity, as reports by Amnesty International, and Médecins du Monde and the Greek Council for Refugees make clear. Two reports published last month document in harrowing detail the reality and impact of racist violence across Europe, as well as its intensification against a backdrop of economic
An indictment of the treatment of poor North African migrants in Belgium and the devastating effects of incarceration has been published as a volume of poetry (in French). In Salée est l’eau de l’amer (Salt is the Water of Bitterness), Souad, a second-generation Moroccan migrant in Belgium, writes autobiographical poems presenting a chronological account of
Anti-extremism frameworks, popular in policy and academic circles, are masking the multi-dimensional and pan-European nature of contemporary fascism and the role of the state. Not since the early 1990s, and the pogroms at Hoyerswerda and Rostock have Europe’s far-right movements posed such a tangible threat to the safety of racial and religious minorities. In truth,
The Belgian government has set its face against saving the life of its citizen, on hunger and thirst strike in prison in Morocco, despite protests in a number of countries. As we go to press, Ali Aarrass, a dual Belgian-Moroccan national, is in a critical condition in a prison in Salé, Morocco. As of 30
Campaigners say police harassment sparked the ‘riots’ at Trappes. On Friday 19 July violence broke out in the Paris suburb of Trappes as young Muslims protested outside a police station at what they described as the provocative treatment of a veiled Muslim woman and her elderly mother. The violence continued on the following night, and
This week, we publish a briefing paper which documents a growing tide of hostility against Europe’s Romani communities. Europe’s Roma face a double victimisation both as Roma and as migrants and are fast becoming the number one scapegoat for the economic crisis, argues IRR’s Director Liz Fekete in this hard-hitting review of anti-Roma hate campaigns
