A study of the impact of immigration on two countries in Western Europe after the Second World War.
This paper discusses how the impacts of immigration on post war western European societies were considerable and how there is still much debate as to whether or not they are beneficial. It looks at how some of the ‘receiver’ countries have become increasingly cosmopolitan, with a wider knowledge and acceptance of foreign cultures at a cost. In particular, it examines how immigration policies remain a problem in Britain and France and how both social tension and racism appear to have become institutionalised in their societies.
“Hostility and racial tension represents one of the most well documented and controversial issues concerning the impact of immigration. Western European societies were by no means unaccustomed to minority persecution, yet the discrimination against skin colour, realised in the form of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrations Act and frequent rioting in both France and Britain, created unprecedented social tension. Some feared conflict was inevitable the moment the Empire Windrush landed at Tilbury docks from Jamaica in 1948 – the first commonwealth immigrants to settle in the country. Subsequent riots in Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham and Middlesbrough appeared to confirm such fears and together with the murder of Algerian immigrants in the southern France set a precedent for social unrest and racism that is still very much a part of modern European society.”