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11/13/05

Outside Looking In

TIME Europe Magazine:

"Outside Looking In

It's not just France. all of Europe is struggling to integrate ethnic minorities into the mainstream

BY JOHANNA MCGEARY

Adnan, Reda and Iachim could be brothers: young, struggling, second-generation Europeans with a grievance. The wiry, kinetic Adnan, 22, owns his own mobile-phone shop, but he's still subjected to regular stop-and-search by the local cops, just like most young men in his neighborhood. When he takes his sharp Mini Cooper for a drive, he says, "The police stop me three times a month, asking, 'Where did you get the money to buy that car?'" Reda, a short, dark-haired 21-year-old, is about to finish vocational school and hopes to find a job in electronics, but says, "When I walk down the street, people say 'blackhead' just because I've got black hair. Whenever a job requires contact with the customer, the management never takes a blackhead." At 26, Iachim is articulate, intelligent and very frustrated. Despite a diploma in retail management, he's prepared to do any kind of work, "even if it's cleaning floors." But for six months, he's been rejected for every job he has applied for. "I never thought it would be this hard," he says, "and it makes me very angry. I feel the system is not giving me a break." Adnan is British, of Pakistani descent; Reda is a German of Palestinian origin; and Iachim is Dutch, with Moroccan parents. Like the angry young men who rampaged through France for over two weeks, they are part of Europe's embittered underclass. "

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