Letter from Paris: The riots—cause and effect
PARIS—Burning automobiles have long been a symbol of civil disobedience and an expression of anger by the underprivileged in France. The carcasses of thousands of cars that littered the landscape last week were testimony to the deep social and economic problems in a country that maintains a fresh memory of the revolutionary slogan "liberty, equality, fraternity."
The charred automobile skeletons scattered around the housing projects or piled high by municipal workers following two straight weeks of nightly rioting in hundreds of suburban housing projects and some city centers reflected the widespread discrimination against immigrants of Arab and African origin and the failure of three decades of expensive social policies intended to integrate them.
"We don't have a choice. We are ready to sacrifice everything because we have nothing," said a young man by the name of Bilal in Aubervilliers, one of the riot-torn Parisian suburbs. "We even burned the car of a friend. He got angry, but he understood."
For years now, cars have been burned in the eastern city of Strasbourg near the German border on New Year's Eve for no apparent reason. It has become a rite of passage into a new year. Indeed, some 25,000 cars are burned in France each year, the result of what experts call "social jealousy" created by the prevailing discrimination—particularly in the job market—against those without the right pedigree or diplomas from elite schools.
This year alone, an average of 80 cars had been burned each day in France before the riots began.
More than 5,000 vehicles have been burned during the current troubles that began October 27, when two youths running from the police were electrocuted in Clichy-sous-Bois northeast of Paris. Their deaths and the serious injuries suffered by a companion sparked the violence, the most serious in France since the legendary 1968 student uprising. Yet despite the intensity of the nightly confrontations with police, only one person has been killed, a man who was beaten to death by a group of rioters.
Stunned and surpassed by events, President Jacques Chirac's center-right government dusted off a 1955 law declaring a state of emergency that gave authorities the right to impose a curfew, conduct raids without a warrant, restrict freedom of the press, close bars and theaters, and place under house arrest people deemed dangerous to public order. The government said it would not restrict press freedom or close theaters. The law, last applied in 1985 to calm violence in the South Pacific territory of New Caledonia, was originally approved to control civil unrest emanating from Algeria's drive for independence from France.
The announcement that the emergency law was being put into effect drew ironic and dismayed comments from the press. Le Monde, in a rare front-page comment, said that "exhuming a 1955 law sends to the youth of the suburbs a message of astonishing brutality: that after 50 years France intends to treat them exactly as it did their grandparents." For its part, the left-wing daily Liberation mocked the government, calling the application of the law "a brilliant step forward" and Chirac's 10-year "reign" a "tragic flaw."
In addition to declaring a state of emergency, the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who as foreign minister had made an impassioned speech against American plans to invade Iraq in the U.N. Security Council, also announced that the 8,000 riot police would be reinforced by 1,500 police reservists. The government's get-tough attitude was also evident in the hundreds of arrests and dozens of persons sent to jail under sped-up judicial proceedings. It is unusual for protesters, no matter how violent, to be arrested in France, much less sent to jail.
Particularly grating to the French and damaging to the country's image abroad was the internal quarreling between Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the two main conservative candidates in a presidential election that is still 18 months away. Although the two men put aside their rivalry as the crisis deepened, both men continued their efforts at one-upmanship. Sarkozy, one of the very few French politicians who have called for affirmative action programs, told the National Assembly on Wednesday that immigrants arrested in the rioting–including those legally in the country–would be immediately deported. Many of those rioting said they were infuriated by Sarkozy's comment calling them "scum."
Beyond the current crisis, which seemed to be slowly ebbing by week's end, lies the question of its underlying causes and what can be done to deal with it.
"The inevitable given is that the French Republic does not recognize minorities or ethnic communities. Once you've done that, you've created a giant screen in the job market," says Ted Stanger, an American journalist who has written several books about France, including the bestselling Sacres Francais, which can be roughly translated as Those Gosh-Darned French.
Employment does indeed seem to be one of the keys to the problem, along with endemic—if frequently silent—discrimination. Unemployment among immigrants of North African origin ages 15 to 24, for example, is about 37 percent compared with 20 percent for the French as a whole and 12.7 percent for foreigners from other EU countries. Even in the 751 so-called sensitive urban zones designated by the government for special attention, unemployment is 19.6 percent and as high as 30 percent among the 21-to-29 age group, according to official government statistics.
Immigrant youths living in underprivileged areas complain that no matter how many CVs they send out, the answer is almost always the same-–silence. An experiment by the independent "Discrimination Observatory" found that applications with the same resume received half as many invitations for interviews when the address signaled a disadvantaged area.
Nevertheless, it is easy to forget in the current context the tremendous efforts made by the French government over the past two decades to improve conditions for immigrants.
"The poor French suburbs are relatively spoiled compared with American inner cities," says Stanger. "They have medical care, schools, and gymnasiums that any affluent American community would be proud of."
A number of these very schools and gymnasiums were the targets of the riots, with some of the facilities burned to the ground. "They burned down the school, and they are right," says a young man in the Paris suburb of Grigny. "We are sick of the hypocrisy. Here the school is good for nothing. Look at us-–90 percent of the students fail, 10 percent get their [high school] degree, and 100 percent are unemployed."
Despite some efforts, such as the one by the prestigious Sciences-Po school in Paris, to draw students from disadvantaged neighborhoods, the number of students in the elite "grandes ecoles" that open the door to success is lower today than at any time during the past 15 years.
Since 2000, France has spent 34 billion euros ($40 billion) in poor districts. The 2006 budget will set a new record, 7.2 billion euros ($8.4 billion), a 13 percent increase over the current year. The money is earmarked for crime prevention, aid to victims of urban violence, housing renovation, education, and infrastructure. Nevertheless, the biggest chunk, 1.8 billion euros ($2.1 billion) , is reserved for the police this year alone.
But the general consensus in France is that these efforts have failed to integrate Muslim youths into mainstream society. A law passed several years ago banning, in the name of secularism, the wearing of veils by Muslim girls was seen by the immigrant community "as an act of repression by the Republican majority against the Muslim minority," Stanger said.
A striking characteristic of the demonstrators is their youth, with many of those involved only 13 or 14 years old. In part this is because French law cannot punish them until they reach 16. Many observers worry, however, that the age of the rioters has shown that their parents have lost control or, worse, agree with the tactics.
One thing the great majority of observers agree about is that the disturbances are not controlled by Islamic extremists or inspired by religious sentiment. The young people rioting have a sense of religion "approaching zero," says Dounia Bouzar, a former member of the Superior Council of French Muslims. "In general, these kids dream only of getting money and consuming like everybody else."
For Bouzar, French politicians have for 20 years refused to deal with the origins of inequality in French society. Riots in 1982 included a march by immigrants from Lyon to Paris that received massive media coverage.
"After the 1982 riots, the young promoters of the March for Equality denounced discrimination in housing and jobs," Bouzar said. "But the idea was insidiously planted in the mind of the public that the causes were not social but cultural . . . if young people burned automobiles it was not because of discrimination but because their parents came from a different culture."
Bouzar says nothing has changed but that today French leaders try to relate the violence to religion, providing an excuse for dealing with the political, social, and economic reasons behind the violence.