Behind the Headlines Arabs in France

There are probably more Arabs living in France today than in all of Israel, including the occupied territories. One and a half million are registered as permanent residents in France and an additional million are believed to be living in France either as illegal immigrants or under the guise of temporary visitors.

During the last 10 years, France’s Arab community with its 43 mosques, 22 newspapers, dozens of schools, hospitals and banks has become a vital economic force and an important political factor. French politicians and businessmen take into account its political aspirations and its economic interests.

One Rolls Royce out of every two registered in France belongs to a Middle Eastern Arab visitor, and one industrial worker out of every 20 is a North African immigrant. Lebanese refugees float some of France’s major banking loans, others own large blocs of shares in major industrial enterprises.

Many of these relatively newcomers now represent large French corporations in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states handling huge sums and indirectly controlling a heavy share of France’s exports to the Arab world. Since January 1977, in slightly over three years, 29 new Arab-owned banks have opened in France to handle the huge amount of cash passing through the country.

SPREAD OF ARAB’ INFLUENCE

All along the Champs Elysees, Paris’ main avenue, Lebanese restaurants have opened to cater to this new clientele. The former “Regine’s,” once the center of the Paris jet set society, has passed into new hands and renamed “The Beirut.” Lebanese Tyne wine is flown in by special plane and Arab bakeries throughout Paris now prepare fresh pita like in the sulks of Cairo or Damascus.

One of Paris’ landmarks, the world famous Ritz Hotel, has been bought by an Egyptian resident; the Cafe de la Paix, where generations of tourists traditionally sat, is owned by a Kuwaiti company. The elegant Prince de Galles Hotel, where many senior Israeli government and Jewish Agency officials stay, is now owned by an Egyptian. On the hotel’s seventh floor, Lebanese leader Raymond Edde has his private apartment and a 22-room office suite which many describe as a Lebanese government in exile.

France’s naval pride, the “France,” the world’s largest liner, was originally bought by Arab businessman Akram Ojjeh. Another Saudi entrepreneur, Ghaith Pharaon, is the owner of a XV Century castle, the Chaleau de Montfort, which he uses as an occasional weekend home.

DIVIDED INTO TWO COMMUNITIES

France’s Arab population is basically divided into two communities, the North Africans who started off as poor, unskilled workers, and the Middle Eastern investors attracted not only by the pleasant West European living standards but also by their desire to closely control their business interests and financial investments.

The massive North African immigration to France started at the end of the Algerian war. Most of the arrivals at the time, in 1961, were Algerians who had collaborated with the French Administration and feared possible reprisals. France, at the start of a large-scale economic expansion, was keen for cheap, undemanding and unskilled labor.

The North African influx continued over the years. Today, according to official statistics, there are close to one million Algerians in France, half a million Moroccans and a quarter of a million Tunisians. They still remain the core of the country’s low paid labor force — the men who sweep the streets, build the roads, and work at menial tasks in the Renault and Peugeot automobile plants.

PENETRATION INTO ECONOMIC LIFE

By their very penetration into French economic life, the North Africans have become an important factor both in the consumer and in the distribution process. “Should the North African merchants or consumers decide to boycott a certain product, its producers would be out of business within less than a fortnight,” a member of the Paris Chamber of Commerce admitted recently.

The North African population is politically highly motivated and well organized within a multitude of associations and unions where political indoctrination is the rule. In most Algerian cultural centers there are regular weekly lectures on such delicate subjects as Jerusalem, the Palestinians and the “Israeli aggression against our Arab brothers.”

For the time being, most of this population is still too busy to assimilate; it is still fighting too hard for basic economic well-being to find time for political involvement in France. In less than a generation, however, many of them will have opted for French nationality, will vote, will bring pressure to bear and will openly make their voices and political views heard.

Their natural leaders are already on the spot Two generations of Arab-born lawyers, doctors and intellectuals who have studied in France and have remained are generally opting for French citizenship.

Their economic framework is also being rapidly established. Over 20 Arab-owned banks have opened in the Paris region alone since January 1977. Among them are such giants as the Union of Arab and French Banks with a turnover of over 13 billion Francs in 1977; the Arab Investment Bank with a turnover of five billion Francs; the France-Arab Investment Bank with a four billion Francs turnover, and the Arab Intercontinental Bank, with a turnover of three-and-a-half billion Francs in 1977.

LEBANESE REFUGEES PROVIDED IMPETUS

The arrival in France in 1977 of some 20,000 Lebanese refugees gave a new impetus to the Arab business community. Most of these refugees came with money, with considerable business experience and with a practical know-how of Western economic practices. They took over hundreds of business companies and now work as French representatives in the Persian Gulf states and Saudi Arabia and operate smaller but highly active banks in Paris, Lichtenstein and Geneva.

French real estate agents say that half of the apartments they sell in the 10,000-20,000 Francs per square meter range are bought by Arabs and mainly Lebanese refugees. These refugees also reportedly now own 10 percent of the Dumez industrial empire, 44 percent of various airline companies and 39 percent of the Dunkerque chemical concern.

Many of them have joined older Arab established firms or businessmen such as the groups led by Akram Ojjeh, a Syrian-born multi-billionaire, Adnam Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian business wizard, Ghalth Pharaon, a 38-year-old Saudi Arabian who is an electronic engineer and a graduate of Harvard, and the new owner of the Intra-Investment Arab Bank and the First Arab Corporation (FAC), which several years ago tried to buy 25 percent of the Lockheed Corporation (a bid turned down by the Washington Administration) and is now eyeing the Dassault Works. Tamraz’s FAC is also openly bidding for half a dozen giant refineries in Western Europe, Canada and Puerto Rico.

This Arab strength is so obvious that Khashoggi declared recently in Paris: “Whether you like it or not, we are henceforth bound together.”

The Arab economic penetration in France is less spectacular than in Britain, where they concentrate on prestige real estate, and more in depth where Arab money flows into industrial projects and long-range economic enterprises. Ojjeh recently explained to the French weekly, Le Point. “French enterprises need money and we need technology and growth companies. We are bound to link our destinies together.”

THE NEW ARAB PRESS

The permanency of the Arab implantation in France is symbolized by the new Arab press. Among the 30-plus Arab publications are such renowned newspapers and periodicals as “An Nahar”; “Al Mstakbol,” with a self-proclaimed regular circulation of 90,000; “Al Watan Al Arabi”; “Al Hawadess”; “Al Riyad” “Al lktissad we Almal Al Arabi,” and “Dar Assayad,” and at least 30 or 40 other lesser known publications.

In chic Paris areas, or on the Gate d’Azur, an affluent Arab resident leaves his elegant eight or nine-room apartment, drives his Bentley or Lincoln Continental car to his office when he does not yet have a chauffeur and bodyguard, has lunch at a Lebanese restaurant, goes out in the evening to an Arab casino and meets friends over drinks later at one of the chic clubs. On the way he stops at a newspaper kiosk to pick up some Arab dailies or weeklies published in France.

At the same time, a poor Arab worker, generally from North Africa, sweeps the streets or weighs fruits and vegetables in a small dingy shop, but nonetheless feels part of the same “Moslem and Arab community” in spite of his one-room flat with practically no heating and just one top of running water.

Both worlds, the multi-billionaires and the poor, are and feel part of the same family and Arab community. Many French Jews feel and fear that in less than a generation from now France’s Arabs will become a main force in French political and economic life.