After The Flames
The violence has many in Europe asking what has gone wrong. The problem isn't hard to find--but fixing it is
Indeed, in a land of liberte, egalite, and fraternite, where laws are admirably colorblind and hyphenated identities are eschewed (there is no French-Moroccan, only French), racism remains a sad fact of life. Job applicants with traditional French names, for instance, are far more likely to be hired than those with Arab names. The government is now considering revamping hiring procedures to consider applicants by number, not name. It is also unleashing some $35 billion for housing renovation, education, and, particularly, crime prevention.
Yet unemployment in France remains a brutal reality--the rate has been permanently stuck at around 10 percent nationally for the past 15 years. If you are young, Arab, or black, it's even worse. Unemployment in the banlieues is double the national average--and approaches 40 percent for 19-to-29-year-olds whose parents are Moroccan or Algerian.
Fertile ground. This joblessness--accompanied as it is by resentment and simple boredom--means the banlieues are seen as a fertile recruiting ground for Islamic extremists, even though the vast majority of residents are nonpracticing Muslims. Still, French politicos bristled last week when local imams issued a fatwa against rioting and sent "big brothers" from mosques to help quell the violence--quite successfully in some areas. The head of Paris's Grand Mosque, who is widely seen in the banlieues as kowtowing to the French establishment, grumbled that "some Muslim organizations . . . think they can invoke God's name in a call for calm."
Though any calm was welcomed, there remains fear that the violence is contagious--as seen in copycat car burnings in Brussels and Berlin. Paola Subacchi at Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs observes that with low employment rates and burgeoning immigrant populations, "the situation is broadly the same across Europe. This could be Naples in a couple of weeks. It could be Dusseldorf or Rotterdam."
VIOLENCE IN FRANCE
[labels]
Seine River
Paris
Orly Airport
Suburban areas of rioting
Charles de Gaulle Airport
MILES
0
15
Riots started on October. 27 in Clichy-sous-Bois
[inset box]
Areas affected by violence
Paris
FRANCE
BELGIUM
GERMANY
ITALY
SPAIN
SWITZ.
Sources: AP; ESRI; AND; Le Monde; local governments
With Eduardo Cue and Thomas K. Grose
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