Do you think that the same Arab immigrants would be in employment if they moved to Norway ? Then you are naive. France has a high unemployment because it has a lot of lazy immigrants who don't want to work as long as they get minimum social security. The youth rioting in Paris has little to do with unemployment (most are under 18), but bad education from the parents and complete misadaptation to the host culture. If the parents are unemployed you would expect them to have more time to take care of their children. Hardly the case.
Well that's a bit too black-and-white in my opinion. Although I am not certain about the situation in France, I can tell you about the situation in Holland.
The immigrants were brought here (many were officialy invited by the government through deals with the home countries) to work in the lower end of the economy. In the case of Holland, many were set to work in factories, mainly textiles and shipbuilding. The reason they needed the cheap labor was because these industries were protected by the government, either for national security reasons or through lobbies by the big men in the industry. In retrospect, it would have been better to outsource these activities to lower-wage countries like in Asia, but that was a pretty uncommon idea back then (the 60's and 70's).
But as time went by, these industries became unsustainable, and many companies went bankrupt, or outsourced their activities after all. The workers became jobless, and because of many disadvantageous reasons, they were unable to find work (lack of experience, lack of language skills, lack of education and discrimination). And so many landed in the social security circuit, living on a hand-out. Who would you blame here? I'd blame the government that was only after short-term benefits, protecting national industries through cheaper labor instead of upgrading its efficiency by investments in innovation and technology.
Sure, there were also a lot of trouble with the regularization of illegal immigrants and many were granted full citizenship without having the official right. Some have indeed come to the country to try and profit from the Dutch welfare state. However, it would be too easy to say that all these people are too lazy to work and just riot for fun. Many have come here with good intentions, but because of a lack of support and education facilities, many are stranded in a situation far from ideal. Far from ideal for Holland and its native population, but also for the immigrants themselves.
