France and Germany like each others a lot. Like any old couple, they also tend to fight a lot. The last result of that conflict left Western Europe, France in particular, in a state of desolation, poor, and homeless. The strategy elaborated in 1956 to counterbalance high fertility rates and housing shortage was to build public housing. These were large, hideous, quickly constructed and badly designed buildings like that one illustration this post, developed wherever there was some room (in periphery of cities), targeting a very dense population, and weirdly enough populated more with poor people than rich.

But the fertility rate was not the only reason for the housing shortage. France used to have lots of colonies, especially in Africa. Most of these were granted independence in the 60’s (notably Algeria, which resulted in one of the darkest moment of French history). This resulted in massive immigration floods from ex-colonies, be it colons or indigenous people. Believe it or not, but lots of these immigrants ended up in public housing.

The situation has little but moved in the past 50 years. Peripheries are densely populated, poor, unemployed, secluded, parked outside. Promiscuity, gray environment, buildings falling apart. Drug came in. Insecurity. Prostitution. Violence. Rape. Very prone to foster inclusion and integration! Worthy of noting for later reference, some of the departments around Paris (not the beautiful districts, trust me) are inhabited by more than 20% of people having roots in Maghreb. You know. One part of the world where nowadays Islam is the mainstream thing.

Succeeding governments acted like they were doing something, by seemingly trying to force tolerance, inclusion and equality in: laws against racism, tax benefits for business getting in the ghettos, ratios to force public housing into rich cities, systems to force young teachers to the ghetto schools, systems to transfer students from the ghettos to rich districts schools, monetary benefits to pay for tuition for people from the ghettos, prohibition of the Niqāb or even just the veil (because, you now, that’s causing a real threat). Little to no results, that’s what you get when putting microscopic investment on such goals. Ironically the French government (as most others do) which is so favorable for inclusion has successfully brought secularism to a whole new level, using that pretext to tolerantly prevent any display of a faith that is so outrageously not what it is used to. (At all cost, please read the sarcasm in my words).

Now if you wrap your head around it as an engineer, this should sound familiar: quick low-cost technical solution to an urgent problem, that you deem sufficient for the moment, that you patch with minimal investments on the mid-term, causes all sorts of issues to the rest of the system on the long-term, and doesn’t seem to die by itself: technical debt.

If you think about it, the concept applies perfectly: governments have been unwilling to invest in re-paying this debt because spending money is unpopular, especially when it’s for somebody else. So they’ve been patching as much as they could, to no avail. Because you can’t correct a systemic issue without changing the system itself, and they are trying to correct marginalization by just rubbing some powder on it. What a price France is paying for it now! Cities peripheries where nobody wants to go, deaths, and war (which will probably cost much more than actually fixing the issue in the first place for a result that is less than guaranteed). Granted, it’s not the only reason this situation exists today: the successive wars and occupations of middle-east are no strangers to why France is a target today.

How much does technical debt costs? A lot. How do you get rid of it? By either walking away from it, or replacing it. Now what about the issue at end — the ghettos: if you apply the same engineering principle, either you walk away (build big walls to isolate these, or nuke them altogether), or you replace the problematic component.

Here is my proposition: call back the planes and the bombs, and use that money to get rid of the ghettos. Destroy that whole freaking bad idea. Nuke these buildings. Get people out of Paris area, not in the close suburbs, but everywhere else in France. Bordeaux, Nantes, Clermont-Ferrand. The hell I know. France is centered on Paris and that is the issue, lodging is not affordable, work does not exist anywhere else. By investing outside of Paris, you may very well create new economic centers. Build up new buildings, not grouped in peripheries, but in a natural, organic expansion of the cities, where anybody would be willing to leave. Treat and house and integrate these people with the same respect you have for the people who are living downtown, and they will behave like these very downtown people.

And stop stealing from middle east countries, and stop making war there every other year, but help construct or reconstruct and build stability.

Now here is the problem, it will require more than words and communication. It will require work, and thinking, and courage, and being strong, and risk being unpopular.

These people are angry and violent, because they are parked and isolated and secluded. They would not be so miserable if they weren’t made miserable. They become extremists because that’s who extremism is appealing to. They become Islamic extremists because it happens to be the thing that’s there. And when it reaches a certain critical mass, where it sustains itself, and when it resonates with other byproducts of 50 years of terrible, terrible foreign policies in middle-east, it explodes.

Fix the problem. Stop treating the symptoms.

Epilogue: I’m getting tired of reading about the raising of extremism and the “problems” of Islam. Curiously enough you’ll find those to say “there are good Muslims”, those to affirm Islam is a risk, and those to say that terrorists don’t get Islam which is promoting peace and love like any freaking religion on earth.

It is NOT about religion. It is about politics. Interior and foreign. You’ve been fooled to look the other way. Do yourself a favor and stop listening to blames and discussion targeting Islam. Western countries governments are the very reason of this situation. Hundreds of years of colonization, stealing from the land, absolutely not helping these territories to develop. Then suddenly the invaders didn’t have any money to sustain colonization, colonies started to revolt. The Western countries fled from there, declaring bankruptcy to the debt they created, leaving a vast vacuum of power, filled in by whomever was the strongest, strongly removing any balance from a whole region. They came back only to scavenge the petrol.

What else could have the governments do? Well, I haven’t heard a lot about Singaporean or Hongkongese terrorists attacking the UL lately. Maybe leaving progressively and transitioning is better than just slamming the door.

But hey, what do I know?

Disclaimer: This is my first semi-political post, please be tolerant