Blaming Aliens Not Foreign to the French : Born and raised in France, a 12-year American resident sees the discontent widespread in both countries. Illegal immigrants bear the brunt of that anger.

Last summer I was sharing after-dinner coffee with a handful of middle-class folks when the chitchat drifted with a whine to the Disintegration of Our Economy and Values.

Out came the usual suspects: steady unemployment, dwindling welfare funds, a badly run health care system, F-grade education. Not far behind was the universal culprit, the alien, especially the illegal variety.

“Anybody can sneak in this country, like the wind into a windmill,� one diner said. “These people come here and abuse our social laws, drain the system and us French people are left holding the bag.�

That’s right, the scene took place on a visit to the heart of the French countryside. Despite what travel columnists might say, the No. 1 concern in France is not fashion, nor food, nor romance.

A general bad mood is widespread there and I gather in much of Western Europe, just as it is in California and much of the United States. Like many Americans, many French people are trying to figure out who threatens their comfortable present and their children’s future. And, like many Americans, many are blaming immigrants, and lawmakers are seeking ways to make it harder to penetrate the border and easier for the police to check out suspicious (i.e. dark-skinned) characters.

France is my original home. I was born and raised there and, as the wife of an American, have lived for 12 years in the United States. Sitting on a cultural fence is uncomfortable and lonely at times. But it gives me an wide-angle view of the Western world.

In recent visits to my homeland, I have found that middle-class life has taken a gloomy turn.

This year it seemed that wherever I turned I had to listen to another complaint about foreign workers, legal or not, especially from North Africa, Turkey and Eastern Europe--looting French society through its generous social laws, disregarding French values and cultural habits, raising the crime rate.

A pharmacist told me of widespread illegal swapping of prescription-drug identification cards, eased by the profusion and similarity of Arabic names.

A doctor assured me that one of the health care system’s worst money leaks is the extension of coverage to all immediate family members of a salaried person. Many Muslims workers, he argued, have one wife and family residing in France and one or more in North Africa, and all benefit.

Stay in the United States--Western Europe is going down the drain, my friends inevitably concluded. It was no use telling them that I hear just the opposite in America.

*

I received an excellent free education from my home country, and its health care system took good care of me. I did not like the idea of its being exploited by ungrateful outsiders. Yet as I looked about, I saw abuse by others as well.

The Arabes loot the system? What about my childhood friend who enjoyed two months of massage sessions, courtesy of the french government to cure cellulite-ridden thighs? Or another acquaintance, a chain smoker who forgoes cigarettes every summer at a free, picturesque health spa that specializes in respiratory ailments?

And are U.S. citizens always fair themselves in expressing outrage over immigration? Many aliens, legal and not, perform tasks for wages that no one else would accept, some as vital as food-growing, harvesting and seeing to it that middle- and upper-class babies are well.

I once overheard an Angeleno movie cameraman boast at a party of knowing how to hire the best live-in child caretaker. Guatemalan women were the best, due to their strong Indian heritage. Salvadorans came next and rebellious Mexicans last. Also crucial was arranging for their green cards, to let them know which side their bread was buttered on.

To me the scariest part of Proposition 187 is not the possible exclusion of children from California public schools. It is the fact that the 187 mentality is common everywhere in the West.

When times were easy, we were happy to let anyone in. None of us--Californians, French, Germans--imagined that immigrant groups could develop a cultural backbone, insist on their language and religion and transform our landscape.

The issues raised by 187 are far from being just about the economy. They are about clashes among values and an anguished questioning of our multicultural, money-driven societies.