ABSTRACT
In autumn 2004, the Netherlands were shocked when film-maker Theo Van Gogh, author of an Islam-critical movie, was shot on the street by a Muslim immigrant. In autumn 2005, riots broke out in Paris after the unsettled death of two young immigrants. Over ten nights in a row, thousands of cars and dozens of buildings burned down, and immigrants, most of them male, jobless, and with a Magrebh background (but a French passport), street battled against the police. Seen in conjunction with everyday discrimination against minorities and ethnically motivated offences, these occurrences put the self-image of European societies as places where different groups live peacefully together into question. For the EU, this is particularly alarming, since it aims at increasing levels of social cohesion in its member states.
