"Like other European nations, France has a long and complicated relationship with the Muslim world and its own immigrant population, many of whom have been in the country for generations. French Muslims are highly diverse, and some are secular while others are observant. One of the policemen killed in the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Ahmed Merabet, was Muslim. Some are at the center of society — soccer player Zinedine Zidane, born in Marseille to Algerian parents, led France to a World Cup victory in 1998 — but large segments of the population remain excluded. Research from INSEE, France’s national statistical agency, indicates that in 2013, the unemployment rate for all immigrants was approximately 17.3%, nearly 80% higher than the non-immigrant rate of 9.7%, and descendents of immigrants from Africa have a significantly more difficult time finding work. The report found that the education and skill levels only explained 61% of the difference in employment rates between descendents of African immigrants and those whose parents were born in France."

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About Journalist Resource:

Based at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, the Journalist’s Resource project examines news topics through a research lens. We surface scholarly materials that may be relevant to media practitioners, bloggers, educators, students and general readers. Our philosophy is that peer-reviewed research studies can, at the very least, help anchor journalists as they navigate difficult terrain and competing claims.

Since the war in Syria began in 2011, more than 250,000 people have been killed and more than half of Syria's population has been displaced from their homes. Devastation on this scale is almost impossible to understand in the abstract: What does that kind of disaster do to a country? These numbers on indicators that feel familiar — things like GDP and school attendance rates — can help show how utterly the war has gutted this once-stable nation.

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