By one estimate, Spain has received more immigrants in the past five years than France received in the previous four decades

Anthony Ham:

In 2000, there were 900,000 foreigners living in Spain. That figure has now risen to 3.7 million (8.5 per cent of the population), an increase of more than 400 per cent. By one estimate, Spain has received more immigrants in the past five years than France received in the previous four decades. Last year, Spain received 560,000 immigrants, one-third of Europe's total.

This massive demographic shift is starting to take its toll. A survey published in January found that 60 per cent of Spaniards believe that there are too many immigrants in Spain. In 1996, the figure was just 8 per cent.

The poll also found that almost twice as many Spaniards see immigration as a more important problem facing Spain than terrorism and there is a widespread perception that the riots that rocked France late last year may offer a vision of the country's future.

Low-scale riots in June in an outer Madrid suburb, prompted by the murder of a local youth by a South American gang, were described by one leading centrist newspaper at the time as the "neighbourhood rebellion against the immigrants". High-profile turf wars between the so-called bandas latinas (Latin gangs) on the streets of Madrid have also helped to make immigration the dominant topic of conversation in bars and restaurants across the city.

"In Spain, you never had to worry about armed people coming into your homes," Fernando, a Madrid office worker, told The Age. "Now things are different and it's because of the immigrants."

There is also something of a sense of siege in Spain fostered by the daily arrival of boatloads of African immigrants along the country's southern coast and by the storming of the country's borders in Spain's African enclaves by hundreds of African immigrants in October.

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