Refugees’ Integration Process in Luxembourg: The case of Arab refugees’ post-political transformations in the Arab region

2011 was significant in the Arab countries; it started a people's political movement in many countries. It was known as (The Arab Spring). This Arab spring led to instability and insecurities in many countries, which resulted in a large flow of asylum seekers to neighbouring countries and Europe. This flow reached its peak in 2015, and many of them ended up arriving in Luxembourg.
The Arab-speaking population is relatively tiny in Luxembourg compared to other neighbouring countries. Still, numbers increased from 1200 residents in 2011 to over 7000 due to this flow of asylum seekers, mainly from Syria and Iraq. While Luxembourg had a specific demographic structure and a multilingual context compared to other European countries, the refugees faced a different situation concerning their integration into Luxembourgish society.
Multilingualism is one of the main challenges asylum seekers face, especially if they do not have previous experience or competencies in any European language. Language learning played a prominent role in allowing people to find job opportunities, decent housing, and be independent of the state and social support.
In this dissertation, I am trying to investigate how the integration process is functioning for this specific group of people in Luxembourg, which factors play a role in their integration, and how the support measures are valid.
I used a qualitative research approach with data collected through semi-structured interviews with asylum seekers who had already received their refugee status to analyse their perception and understanding of their integration process. The interviews were conducted in their native language (Arabic), which gave me access to a more straightforward free discussion with the interviewees but added a limitation of the need to translate the selected excerpts and not having the possibility to translate the whole interviews.
The main results are that the Arab refugees’ integration process had several aspects. Concerning the prejudgment before arrival, the waiting time of their asylum application, then after holding the refugee status, other elements that they faced played a role as a barrier; or a challenge for their integration processes like housing, language learning, job market and family conditions.
I concluded that different components are needed to fulfil their integration needs, and they can be structured in organized stages for integration. The multiculturalism of Luxembourg can play a positive role in facilitating integration but, simultaneously, can create challenges for people to adapt and progress in their integration process. The diverse components can be organized in a tower model built on the different integration components to reach the level needed for good integration.