Germany's Kebab University

Speaking of the Turks, a vocational college in Hamburg, Germany, is offering a new certificate class, "Meat Processing with Döner Kebab Production Specialization."

The course is part of initiatives to encourage young people with immigrant backgrounds to get professional training. "Mainly people with migrant backgrounds and Turkish people work in this business but few have qualifications," said Kazim Abaci, head of Companies Without Borders, a German association designed to promote integration in the workplace. "We want to give those people a better chance and make them re-employable."

Most employees of kebab joints in Germany are of Turkish descent, so the program is clearly aimed at that group rather than at immigrants generally. It's either a transparent attempt to inculcate Turkish-Germans into the Teutonic obsession with cleanliness, or a clever way to reach a population that remains separated from the rest of the country in many ways. Whatever the case, it's good news that German NGOs are thinking of practical ways to integrate the approximately 2.5 million residents of Turkish descent into society, rather than letting the xenophobes set the agenda, as has sometimes happened in other European countries.

Over to you, France.