A quote from the Italian press agency ANSAmed, 28 April 2008

The incomes received by immigrants and then sent to their countries of origin are a resource on which the governments in Mediterranean are becoming increasingly dependant: according to a recent survey by the European Investment Bank (EIB), the remittances of foreign workers have increased the volume of foreign investments and development aid received from international organisations. The survey, funded by the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership (FEMIP), sheds light on the funds transferred from Europe to eight south Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey), a turnover that represents between 2% and 20% of the gross domestic product of the Mediterranean countries. […]

The countries which benefit most from the money of their emigrants are Morocco, which in 2003 received 2.9 billion euro, followed by Algeria (1.35 billion euro), Turkey (1.3 billion euro), Tunisia (950 million euro) and Egypt (544 million euro). Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, said that most of the remittances made by immigrants living in the EU go to Africa, Morocco in particular.

According to data by Eurostat which drew a map of the remittances flows in 2004, the most consistent money flow to African countries comes from France (59.6% of the French remittances go the South Mediterranean), followed by Belgium (35.9%), the Netherlands (31.2%) and Italy (30.6%).

 
Italy

A quote from the Italian press agency AGI, 29 April 2008

The number of foreign residents in Italy with valid residence permits has been put at just over 2,400,000 (129,000 more than there were last year). Over 88 pct of them live in the Centre-North of the country, with a good quarter in Lombardy.

A quote from ANSAmed, 29 April 2008

The distrust of Italians towards the immigrants is growing: almost one out of three says no to the construction of mosques on the national territory. And if the Islamic immigrants are considered problematic, the control/regulation of immigration represents one of the ten major problems in the country. […] Even a big share of the non-Muslim immigrants (44.5%) believed that immigration from Islamic countries posed more problems than that from other countries. Besides, almost 50% of the Christian immigrants and immigrants from other faiths were against the possibility for Muslims to build mosques in Italy: a much higher percentage than the one registered among Italians (31%).

 
Spain

A quote from ANSAmed, 29 April 2008

One out of five employees in Spain is a foreigner, considering that the immigrants represent 21% of the total of the employees who signed employment contracts in 2007, with an increase by 31% compared to the previous year, news agency EFE reported, quoting a report of consultancy Randstat. Latin America is the place of origin for the majority of the foreign employees, considering that almost one out of four originates from Central America or South America. A total 32.8% of the total of the immigrant employees, according to the report, come from Africa and in particular 23.2% from North Africa and the rest from Sub-Saharan Africa. The employees coming from eastern Europe are on the rise and represent 33% of the total immigrants.

A quote from ANSAmed, 28 April 2008

The regional government of Catalonia has set a limit for the number of immigrant students in the classrooms of state-run schools and private centres, to avoid that the presence of foreign students, prevailing in state-run schools, might give rise to ghettoes.

 
France

A quote from The Washington Post, 29 April 2008

This prison is majority Muslim – as is virtually every house of incarceration in France. About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country's prison system are Muslim, […] On a continent where immigrants and the children of immigrants are disproportionately represented in almost every prison system, the French figures are the most marked, according to researchers, criminologists and Muslim leaders. […]

In Britain, 11 percent of prisoners are Muslim in contrast to about 3 percent of all inhabitants, according to the Justice Ministry. Research by the Open Society Institute, an advocacy organization, shows that in the Netherlands 20 percent of adult prisoners and 26 percent of all juvenile offenders are Muslim; the country is about 5.5 percent Muslim. In Belgium, Muslims from Morocco and Turkey make up at least 16 percent of the prison population, compared with 2 percent of the general populace, the research found.