PARIS: As historically white European societies take in millions of immigrants, most of them from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, as presidents and prime ministers preach the virtues of diversity and tolerance, government remains solidly dominated by whites.

Lack of citizenship may explain some of this imbalance _ some members of the European minority communities are newcomers and don’t have the right to vote. But even those who have full citizenship are sometimes far from being represented proportionally in the upper levels of European government, statistics suggest.

For instance, the Turkish community in Germany estimates that about one in 160 German citizens is of Turkish origin. But there is only one ethnic Turk in the 669-seat national parliament. There is just a smattering of minorities in elected office at the local level, including controversial German-Syrian Jamal Karsli, a member of the parliament in the state of North Rhein-West Falia.

Britain, where minorities make up about seven percent of the population, has just 12 minority members in the 659-seat House of Commons, less than 2 percent of the body. Prime Minister Tony Blair recently named the country’s first black Cabinet minister, Paul Boateng, as chief secretary to the treasurer.

Italy, with close to 1.3 million legally registered immigrants as of December, has not a single non-white official in its national legislature, according to authorities there.—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post