Muslim Immigration to Europe*

by

Mark J. Miller

University of Delaware

(Submitted to The Minaret,

October 1, 2005)

* Dedicated to the memory of Professor Rémy Leveau, a leading French student

of the Muslim and Arab worlds, who died earlier this year.

No one knows for sure how many Muslims there are in Europe. Estimates vary wildly. Muslims comprise a large segment of Europe’s illegally resident population which cannot be precisely enumerated. In France, authorities are legally barred from inquiring about religious beliefs in a census. Many observers estimate France’s Muslim population to number between four and five million. But a leading demographer hotly disputes the five million figure as too high, while less authoritative pundits write about six or seven million Muslims in France. The bulk of French Muslims are French citizens, which was not the case back in 1970 when Islam already ranked second among France’s religions. The relative ease of naturalization in France and the legacy of French rule over Algeria made Islam the second religion of the French circa 1990.

Most of Europe’s Muslims immigrated after 1945 or are the children or grandchildren of post-World War II immigrants. Millions of Muslims in Southeastern Europe, of course, are not of recent immigrant-origin but constitute a living legacy of Ottoman rule. Some can be viewed as “sons of the soil,” others not. This population can be regarded too as a remnant, as Justin McCarthy has estimated that over five million Ottoman Muslims were killed and an equivalent or larger number ethnically cleansed over the long century from 1820 to 1923. The foremost Ottoman population expert, Kemal Karpat, regards McCarthy’s estimates as conservative. One should note as well that there are significant indigenous Muslim populations in Eurasian areas of the former U.S.S.R. Not all of Western Europe’s Muslims are of post-1945 immigration background. Metropolitan France, for instance, had experienced considerable migration of Muslims from Algeria and Morocco prior to 1939. Indeed, I’Etoile nord-africaine, the forerunner of the Algerian National Liberation Front and other later primarily Algerian Muslim movements took root amongst largely Berber auto workers in interwar France. The beneficiaries of the first French legalization policy under the Popular Front in 1936 were Moroccans.

Nevertheless, the key to understanding the status, and plight, of the vast bulk of Europe’s Muslims lies in elucidation of post-World War II European migration policies. Three, perhaps four, periods can be discerned. The guestworker recruitment period till 1973, the stabilization period from the mid-1970s to roughly the end of the Cold War, a perceived crisis period that begins around 1990. Maybe the post 9/11 and now post-Madrid and post 7/7 period constitutes a fourth distinctive period. If periodization should take account of the volume of scholarly writing about Muslims in Europe, the post-9/11 period truly merits demarcation.

Scholarly writing about Muslims in Europe has grown exponentially as has scholarship about migration and security. The contrast between the scant scholarship of the 1945 to 1973 period and that of the pst-9/11 period could not be more striking. From 1945 to 1973, immigration policies in Europe were rarely viewed as linked to security. Since 9/11, Madrid and now 7/7, questions concerning migration and Muslims predominate analysis of European security. Yet, migration, whether it involves Muslims or not, almost always concerns security , not the least because migrants often suffer insecurity. This certainly was the case of the bulk of post-World War II migrants during the guestworker era. It is the integration deficit born of these public policies that haunts European politics today. Very few observers and policymakers expected such an outcome. This reflects the prevalent pattern of policy failure characteristic of migration policies.

The Guestworker Era: The creation

Of a European Muslim “problem”

In the years following World War II, no one foresaw massive Muslim migration to and settlement in Europe in coming decades. Among European states, France constituted an exception in that it could be considered a land of immigration. Due to a perceived demographic insufficiency and labor market needs, the French government had long authorized or allowed extensive recruitment of foreign workers and colonial workers. In 1945, there was a broad consensus in governmental circles that large-scale immigration should resume. To this end, a National Immigration Office was created and given a legal monopoly over recruitment of foreign workers. As the late George Tapinos suggested, the French Republic, which then straddled the Mediterranean, evolved a two-track policy. It welcomed the immigration and settlement of Italians and Spaniards, judged to be assimilable, while pursuing temporary foreign worker policy when North African Muslims were recruited for employment.

The Algerian drama greatly complicated matters. French authorities grudgingly conceded mobility rights and eventually citizenship to Algerian Muslims but too belatedly to preserve French Algeria. Algerian Muslim emigration to metropolitan France surged during the war of independence from 1954 to 1962. Under the Evian Accords that allowed Algerians to vote for independence, French citizens of Algerian Muslim background could opt to retain their French citizenship or become citizens of the new Algerian state. A fraction retained French citizenship including the Harkis, Algerian Muslim French soldiers and their families, who were resettled in metropolitan France with some governmental assistance.

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of the Algerian war to subsequent problems encountered by Muslim migrants to France. During the war, rival Algerian Muslim factions fought one another incessantly and mercilessly in metropolitan France. The Algerian Muslim-background population in metropolitan France played a significant role in the outcome of the war in Algeria. On October 17, 1961, a large number of French citizens were killed or injured by Parisian police during massive street demonstrations organized by the National Liberation Front. So deep are the scars of this period, that only recently has the French government acknowledged what transpired. Subsequent waves of violence directed against Arabs in France, such as in southern France in 1972 and 1973 when scores were murdered, served as grim reminders of the long shadow cast by the Algerian trauma.

After independence, Algerian authorities debated the pros and cons of a bilateral labor accord with France. In 1964, recruitment began and the accord was renewed in 1968. Both France and Algeria regarded the status of Algerian workers and their families as temporary, similar to the legal status afforded foreign guestworkers in Germany or seasonal workers in Switzerland. France also began recruitment of temporary foreign workers from Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey in the 1960s. Significant numbers of Muslim workers and their families also arrived from former African colonies like Mali and Senegal.

The temporary foreign worker recruitment policies pursued by Germany and Switzerland were more typical of the guestworker era. Initially, most foreign workers recruited to the two countries were Italians. Recruitment of labor from predominantly Muslim areas, like Turkey, began much later. When recruitment of Muslim workers from Yugoslavia or Turkey commenced, no particular significance was attached to it. After all, these were seasonal workers or guestworkers destined to repatriate, not to settle.

It is important to recall why European authorities believed that foreign labor recruitment would not engender settlement. Both Swiss and German authorities viewed temporary foreign worker recruitment as a labor market policy. Foreign workers would be admitted as needed during periods of economic expansion but sent home during recessions. Nobody imagined thirty years of sustained economic growth. Moreover, when recession finally hit in 1967, numbers of foreign workers in Germany and Switzerland receded. However, already by 1964, Swiss authorities had renegotiated the bilateral accord with Italy, and under strong pressure, had conceded that long-term seasonal workers should be allowed to become resident aliens and be allowed family life. Eventually, all seasonal workers could earn residency so that, by the 1970s and 1980s, Muslim workers from Yugoslavia and Turkey could become resident aliens and bring in their families.

Most foreign workers recruited during the guestworker era did repatriate, but a large fraction, one quarter to one third, did not. The German case was emblematic. After the brief 1967 recession, guestworker recruitment resumed. Turkish guestworkers became the single largest component of Germany’s foreign population of nearly four million when further recruitment was stopped in 1973. Many Turkish guestworkers renewed their permits and began to bring in spouses and dependents. Moreover, growing numbers of them joined German unions and some dared to strike. The largely Turkish autoworker wildcat strike at the Ford plant in Cologne in 1972 shocked German authorities and hastened the decision to stop further recruitment of foreign labor in 1973. As the realization sank in that many Turkish and other foreign workers were settling and being joined by family members, discussion of a need for integration measures belatedly began.

German conservatives like Franz Josef Strauss, the Minister-President of Bavaria, sought to induce repatriation through administrative means. But German courts blocked such efforts. Later, Hans Filbinger, the Minister-President of Baden-Wuerttenburg, would support a cash for repatriation policy but did not succeed in implementing it. Helmut Kohl when he became Chancellor finally did implement a cash for repatriation policy in 1982 that resulted in nearly 300,000 foreigners, mainly Turks, repatriating. But the policy was harshly criticized and proved very expensive. It has never been renewed. Moreover, after a brief decline, Germany’s foreign population quickly returned to pre-cash for repatriation policy levels. Hence, many of Germany’s guestworkers stayed on amid a growing realization that spouses and children would be joining them. Children born to Turkish couples on German soil were legally aliens, not German citizens.

It is important to recall the contingency of the legal status afforded most foreign workers recruited to Europe during the guestworker era. Commonwealth workers recruited to Great Britain arrived as citizens but, as Stephen Castles and Godula Kosack argued in the most important book on the era, immigrants to the UK would endure many of the same problems encountered by foreign workers elsewhere in Europe – poor housing, employment at the bottom of the labor market, racism and discrimination. During the presidency of Valery Giscard d’Estaing from 1974 to 1981, the French government unsuccessfully sought to secure massive repatriation of the Algeria-origin population. French conservative governments pursued cash for repatriation policies as did Socialist-led governments in the Mitterrand era until1984. French repatriation-policies fared poorly too.

The stabilization era: Multiple

transformations under the veneer

When European authorities curbed most further recruitment of foreign workers from 1972 to 1975, they thought that overall populations of aliens would decline. Again, they were wrong. But the curbs did halt the rapid growth of the 1968 to 1973 period. A rough stabilization of the size of alien populations was achieved.

Nevertheless, the alien population of Europe changed markedly from 1975 to 1990. The ratio of economically active foreigners to inactive or dependents reversed from 2 to 1 to 1 to 2. Dependent spouses and children replaced foreign workers.

Prior to 1973, very few foreign workers were unemployed. In most European states, continued legal residency hinged on employment. The economic restructuring of the 1970s disproportionally adversely affected employment of aliens as they were concentrated in those sectors that suffered the most job losses. Aliens in France, for example, comprised one out of every three workers in the building sector and one out of four autoworkers. The massive job losses in these two key sectors between 1973 and 1979 greatly increased unemployment of aliens, many of whom were Muslims. The fate of largely Moroccan workers painting cars at the Renault-Flins plans outside of Paris was typical. They were replaced by robots.

Unemployed auto workers faced grim prospects for new employment. Often, they had been recruited for employment in the automobile construction industry precisely because they were poorly educated, even illiterate. Several firms sought to counteract trade union organization through recruitment of Moroccans. Firms also built Islamic prayer rooms within factories as part of a anti-union strategy. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, massive strikes mainly involving Muslim workers, rocked the French auto construction industry. Socialist Prime Minister Mauroy would accuse the revolutionary regime in Tehran of inciting the strikes. But no evidence supported the allegation. To the contrary, the militancy of many auto workers arose from their desperation and their cohesiveness. Parallel shop-floor associations of Muslim auto workers arose along side the French unions.

The disproportionally high rate of unemployment of foreigners in France would continue. Some unemployed aliens returned home. A few accepted cash bonuses for repatriation. But many became long-term unemployed. Across Western and Northern Europe after 1973, immigrant populations including large numbers of Muslims often experienced disproportionally high unemployment.

The composition of alien populations also evolved in terms of origins. Populations of aliens from physically and culturally proximate lands declined as populations from distant lands grew. In Sweden, the numbers of Finns dropped while populations from Turkey and Iran grew. In Switzerland, the population of Italians declined while the largely Muslim Kosovar population grew.

The institutional emergence of Islam became part and parcel of the settlement process taking place in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Numbers of mosques and prayer rooms mushroomed as did Islamic organizations and associations. Libya and Saudi Arabia competed to influence emergent Islamic communities by financing mosque construction. Homeland governments also played important roles in provision of Islamic clergy and the development of Islamic educational institutions. Spain and Italy underwent transition from lands of emigration to lands of migration. New migrations to Southern Europe involved large numbers of Muslims, broadening the scope of the emergent European Islam.

Politicization of immigration issues increased during the stabilization era. The French National Front scored a breakthrough in municipal elections in Dreux in 1983. Its anti-immigration stance had anti-Muslim overtones even though some French Muslims supported it.

Among the many issues fostering concern over immigration policies figured asylum. In the 1980s, numbers of asylum-seekers skyrocketed. Many asylum-seekers came from largely Islamic societies like Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. Not a few Europeans viewed asylum-seekers as economically-motivated migrants.

The post-Cold War era:

The state of integration

Most Western and Northern European states proclaimed integration policies after the recruitment curbs of 1972 and 1975. During the stabilization era, these policies took shape, usually grudgingly and piecemeal. The collapse of the Soviet bloc, German reunification and progress in European regional integration significantly affected international migration to and within Europe and prospects for European Islamic communities forged by post-World War II migrations. Another defining feature of the new era stemmed from the linkage of migration to security policy. This process has been termed securitization by scholars such as Barry Buzan and Ole Waever. Already in the 1980s, the perception of growing insecurity reflected apprehensions fueled by occasional rioting by migrant-background youths in urban settings in France and the UK and by juvenile delinquency. In France, the slang term Beur, Arab in verlan, became popularized through nation-wide demonstrations for equality. By the 1990s, insecurity had become the second most salient issue in French politics, after unemployment, and a code word for unease about immigrants and their offspring.

Violence in Turkey and Algeria heightened concerns over migration and security. The revolt led by the Kurdish Workers Party (KPP) spilled over to Turkish communities in Europe, particularly in the Federal Republic of Germany with its Turkish population in excess of two million. About one-third of Germany’s Turks were of Kurdish background and many sympathized with the KPP. When the KPP leadership threatened attacks against German interests, the Kurdish insurgency became Germany’s paramount national security issue.

Similarly, the spillover of Algerian conflict to French soil had become France’s principal national security concern by 1995. A commando of Armed Islamic Group militants, allegedly secretly directed by the Algerian government, began a bombing campaign. Other French Muslims attacked targets in Morocco. Such developments lent geo-strategic flavor to questions of Muslim integration in Europe.

The growing scholarly literature on the state of immigrant integration only partially concerned Muslims. Heterogeneity above all characterizes the Islamic population. Its diversity defies generalization. The state of integration of immigrants and their offspring depends a great deal on the context in which they live. European governments pursue distinctive migration policies and possess diverse institutional arrangements which bear upon integration or incorporation. Moreover, post-World War II Muslim migrants to Europe came from diverse national origins. Even within specific homelands, like Turkey and Algeria, diversity abounded amongst Muslims, both doctrinally and ethnically.

Generally, social science research reveals an uneven state of affairs. There co-exists both encouraging and discouraging evidence. In the key states of France and Germany, secularization affects key Muslim-background populations like those of Algerian and Turkish origin. But Moroccans practice Islam more regularly than Algerian-background individuals.

The leading authority on Muslims in France, Michelle Tribalat, found extensive evidence of integration in terms of French language usage, teen dating patterns and intermarriage. Employment, housing and education remained problem areas. Another leading French student of Muslims in France and the transatlantic area, Jocelyn Cesari, is quite upbeat about the political integration of French Muslims. French Muslims remain underrepresented in public office and participate politically less than other French citizens. Nevertheless, only a fringe of French and other European Muslims support extremist, violence-prone fundamentalist movements. The leading French authorities on Islamic fundamentalism, Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy, regard Islamic fundamentalism as a failed political project. Roy notes that Islamic fundamentalist movements have become more national and less radical in recent years. He likens them to Christian Democratic-style parties.

Two Dutch scholars directed a noteworthy comparative research project that principally compared Moroccan and Turkish background Muslims in six European states. They demonstrated that integration of Turkish and Moroccan-background individuals was strongly influenced by the setting in which they lived. There was greater access to higher education in France than in Germany. But unemployment and underemployment were worse in France than in Germany.

Ruijs and Roth wrote a review of the literature-style essay for the Russell Sage Foundation in 2002. Although focusing only on social science literature on Muslims in Europe, they estimated that there were several thousand publications. This literature has continued to mushroom.

Europe’s Muslims after

9/11, Madrid and 7/7

Recent al-Qaida-linked attacks in Europe and the United States have made measured assessment of the threat emanating from Muslims in Europe a necessity. Several thousand European Muslims, including some converts to Islam, fought on the side of the Mujahideen against the Soviets and their allies in Afghanistan. Hundreds, if not thousands, of European Muslims joined or trained with Al-Qaida and its allies. Some died fighting U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan after 9/11. And hundreds of European Muslims have fought the U.S. and allies in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

Hundreds of Muslims have been detained in Europe since 9/11 and scores have been imprisoned for plotting attacks. A French intelligence report in 2005 described the spread of Salafist influence in mosques and prayer rooms in France and enumerated 541 activists. The apparent growth of the Salafist current has alarmed French officials because Salafists reject Western ways and have figured importantly in plots and violence. Further alarm has been raised by the involvement of Muslim youths in attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions, particularly in France.

Such untoward developments need to be put in accurate perspective. The great mass of the many millions of Muslims in Europe has nothing to do with the radical activities of a small fringe. The vast majority are law-abiding and share the aspirations of fellow Europeans who numerically dwarf Europe’s still small but growing Muslim population. Many Muslims continue to encounter serious barriers to integration in employment, housing and education.

In the past, terrorist groups have often sought to foster repression to achieve their goals. The prospect of Muslim integration into European societies may well represent an anathema to Islamic radicals. The perceptible growth of Islamophobia in Europe should be sounding alarm bells. Overreaction or unreasoned reaction to the extremist activities of a small minority of Muslims in Europe threatens European security because integration of European Muslims is imperative.

Most indications suggest that Muslims in Europe are integrating, albeit slowly and painfully, like previous waves of immigrants to democratic settings in Europe and elsewhere. There is no reason to believe that there is something unique or intrinsic to Islam that will prevent this outcome. The passage of time and succession of generations are key. Guestworker-style public policies helped create an enormous integration deficit, but it can, indeed must, be overcome.