Behind the new riots of outer Paris

Black wet sludge was all that remained of the books in the library at Villiers-le-Bel when I walked in at lunchtime. The Louis Jouvet library, attached to a nursery school, was burnt down in last night's riots in the town in the outer north Paris suburbs.

The mess in the single-storey building, set in a pleasant garden, is an obvious symbol for the futility of the latest crisis to blow up in France's troubled suburbs. Hundreds of kids -- for that is what most of them are -- rampaged through this town for the second night last night fighting police and burning and looting the district that is their home.

The biggest outbreak of banlieue violence since the riots of 2005 was sparked by the deaths of two teenagers when their motorcycle ran into a police car on Sunday afternoon. Moushin, 15, of Moroccan origin, and Larami, 16, from a Malian family, were driving, underage, fast and without helmets on an unregistered dirt bike when they hit the car. That is the official version and the local kids don't believe it. 

Three cellophane-wrapped bouquets of flowers sit by the wall at the spot where the boys were killed at an intersection between two quiet residential streets. "Dead for nothing" says a scrap of paper. The boys lived nearby in relatively well-kept housing estates that do not live up to the media's sinister image of the French outer-city ghetto. Money has been spent to improve the area, a district of neat bungalows behind laurel hedges and medium-sized public housing estates.  But you can feel the anger in the air, along with the smell of the overnight fires.

Young men in their 20s and young mothers poured out their bitterness to the reporters who had flocked to Villiers (more media than police were visible today). "They treat us like animals. A kid's life is nothing for one of Sarkozy's cops," said Hussain, a building worker in his 20s who said he knew the boys.

The older men and women there do not believe the kids' version that the teenagers' bike was deliberately rammed by police. But they all say that the violence is an understandable, if not excusable, outcome of the despair and alienation that afflicts the kids on the ethnic estates. The refrain is coming from all sides this week: the lot of the immigrant young has not improved since the 2005 violence. The street rampages that year were also ignited by the deaths of two boys in the proximity of police officers.

At Villiers, as in the rest of the banlieue, you hear non-stop of the despair felt by the young who have been shut out of a society run for white French. "The cops come here and taunt us," said a woman in her 20s whose family came originally from Morocco. "They stop me for my papers and laugh and say, 'funny, you don't look French'."

A woman of about 40, blonde and ordinary suburban French, stopped her Peugeot and wound down the window to tell me how disgusted she was over the way the police treat the immigrant families. "This place is difficult. There are a lot of social cases and it's about 90 percent foreigners, but when I see the cops rolling in here and shoving them around, it's a provocation. Imagine if someone put an attack dog on your front lawn, you'd react."

Of course none of that justifies the extreme violence towards les keufs (the cops) that has been displayed by the kids in Villiers and nearby Sarcelles and Gonesse this week. Over 80 police were injured, four of them seriously, by shotgun pellets last night. The shop-keepers who were sweeping up broken glass and boarding up windows yesterday had little sympathy for the wreckers. "There are a lot of mindless little bastards who just want to smash everything," said the Turkish owner of a little jewelry shop that had been looted near the Villiers station. 

And it is too easy to blame Sarko, and the heavy-handed policing that he brought in when he was Interior Minister after 2002. The flare-ups at Villiers, as at Clichy-sous-Bois in 2005, are the consequence of decades of neglect, not recent policies. 

A lot of public money is being shovelled into the "sensitive zones" as they are euphemistically called. I dropped in on one example, a municipal trades training centre on the Avenue Salvador Allende, near the accident site. They were just hauling away five burnt-out cars and repairing smashed windows. The cars were there for apprentice mechanics to learn their trade.  Larami, the dead 16-year-old, had just started his baker's apprenticeship there a week ago. "When you think of all the money that has been invested here for their future..." Josiane Mazerand, the director, told me before breaking off. She said she preferred not to give an opinion on reasons for the riots.

There is a difference between now and 2005. That is the more sensitive handling by the government. Telephoning from Beijing, Sarkozy has told the government to cool it and try to defuse the anger in the affected estates at the same time as using police to keep a lid on it.  The police were noticeable by their absence in the daytime streets today. They will be back tonight though, in force.

In 2005, Sarko's initial tough reaction fuelled the flames. The media are also being called on to avoid dramatic footage because video of burning cars and buildings helped breed competition among the youths of rival districts the last time round. Reporters on the scene of the last two nights' mayhem at Villiers say that the kids, who are mainly between 14 and 17, now routinely film their feats of battle for viewing among their mates and on the internet.

[picture: fathers of the dead boys being comforted]

Comments

[raindrop]

thank you for depicting the situation with as much fairness as possible.

However I'm not quite sure about the "official version " of the accident.

it is said the first conclusions don't take the policemen as responsible for the crash. it also brings back last summer in southern france, the case of a kid that was run into by a police car driven by a trainee who did not even brake .

[Dominique]

Thanks to the media revolution, we now live in a world of rumors. "Le dernier qui parle a raison". Welcome back to the middle-age. The truth is now what you believe in and facts no longer count.

I suppose this already happened in Europe when Guttemberg invented the printer during the renaissance.

[Edward Johns]

"it is said the first conclusions don't take the policemen as responsible for the crash. it also brings back last summer in southern france, the case of a kid that was run into by a police car driven by a trainee who did not even brake "
Does the apparently virulent anti-police sentiment in France follow from their cooperation with the nazis in Vichy during the occupation ?
Do people really belive that their police will deliberately set out to ram motorcyclists?
If the police are not supported, social problems will mushroom.
Looking at the UK, the state effectively capitulated to the rioters in the era of the Broadwater
Farm riots, just look at the murder rates amongst immigrant communities now, especially amongst the young.
The cliche that springs to mind is "that a society gets the police force it deserves"

[Daniel Strohl]

Edward,

"Does the apparently virulent anti-police sentiment in France follow from their cooperation with the nazis in Vichy during the occupation ?
Do people really belive that their police will deliberately set out to ram motorcyclists?"

First question : in my opinion, the answer is clearly no. Most if not all of the youngsters involved in the riots do not even know what a nazi was and do not know either what the Vichy government was.

Second question : No - not the adults - Charles said :"The older men and women there do not believe the kids' version that the teenagers' bike was deliberately rammed by police". This is the case of most of French adults - with the exception of a few agitators, who try to use and misuse such incidents or accidents for their own ends.

The police is the scapegoat for the frustrations of the youngsters, who have no valuable education, who have big difficulties to find a job and who live most of the time in "ghettos", even if there are some improvements, as Charles has described above.

[azloon]

it sounds as though france has a police problem, either real or perceived. it really doesn't matter which, since both require action.

does france, or french cities, have civilian police review boards, made up of independently appointed members, who review controversial police conduct and make recommendations ?

can indivividual police officers be suspended or indicted for negligent or criminal behavior?

did the police in this instance arrest any of the rioters/looters?

the french riots are reminiscent of inner city riots in the u.s. during the 1960s to 1980s involving mostly young black men.

it may sound a bit 'airy-fairy,' but french police may require special training ('sensitivity training') for dealing with the banlieues, and acknowledgement must be made when police behavior is negligent or criminal.

at the same time, rioters need to be dealt with severely with jail sentences when appropriate.

throwing money at the banlieues won't make any difference if the young there feel they have been marginalized with little chance of achieving success.

and 'cracking down'/'getting tough' when they riot from time to time just makes the whole situation more desparate.

here's another area in which france "has to stop thinking and to start to do something" concrete and imaginative, and to fully acknowledge the problems that exist.

it's interesting how this theme keeps emerging in the unfolding events in france, and how much resistance there seems to be to the idea of change.

[Maggie G]

I agree with Edward Johns when he says that the police are not supported in France. Maybe it has nothing to do with the Vichy period, but for whatever reason, the police are not held in high esteem in France.

A year or two ago a brand new lifeboat was sunk by vandals in Bordeaux or someplace. I remember mentioning this to a cousin-in-law of my husband who dropped in for a visit. This woman is a medical doctor and a basically normal person. On hearing about the lifeboat she cried something like, "Oh, I HATE it when vandals do things like this to the pompiers!! The police are con, but the pompiers are brave people who save lives. They don't deserve to be treated like this!!"

If normal, educated people say things like this about the police when they're not even talking about them, how can anyone expect the immigrant kids in the ghettoes to feel any differently?

This woman had no idea how much she shocked me by what she said. It didn't even occur to her that she had said something 'unusual'.

[John]

Thanks Charles Bremner for illustrating what Paul B referred to as "journalistic flexibility" in his last message. So in your post about skyscrapers last week these were only "towns beyond the Périphérique", but now that it's about riots they are of course nothing less than "outer Paris" itself.

Frankly, you'll have to choose at some point. Either these places are just towns beyond the Périphérique with little relevance to Paris, either they are intimately part of the Greater Paris fabric, but you can't have it both ways.

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

I think, Daniel, that these deprived non-white kids know what a Nazi is: a thug in uniform who can beat them and kill them and get away with it. Two dead boys afraid of stop-and-search in 2005 ran from the police and were electrocuted. Two on a bike are killed and the police run away from the scene. What these kids know and what their parents have told them is that the Paris police get away with murder and have alway been institutionally racist.
Jews then and Arabs now.
The French police rounded up Jews including those with French nationality, and sent them to Auschwitz. Of 76,000, only 3% returned to France in 1945. The Paris Prefecture gave 150,000 indexed cards on Jews and their property to the Gestapo.
The Prefect, Bussiere, got 5 years in prison; of 4,000 cops questioned,1,900 were mildly penalised. Only 196 were condemned by the courts.
Peter Kinsley, London

[Michel, London]

"Does the apparently virulent anti-police sentiment in France follow from their cooperation with the nazis in Vichy during the occupation ?"

What the fxxx?!

Do you English-speaking people think everything in France can be explained through the only piece of French modern history you know?!

World War II was 62 years ago, get over it!

Those kids' parents weren't probably around during the war, so I guess the current conditions they live in explains more than what they -possibly- only know from history books...

[Valentin]

"Does the apparently virulent anti-police sentiment in France"

While agreeing with Daniel's post above, I will add that to my knowledge we cannot speak of an anti-police sentiment in France.
To be precise, this is only seen in immigrant suburbs of big cities.

Also to add to Daniel's final paragraph, many are not even jobless youngsters, but 13-17 years old kids totally left to themselves.

(and for the moralistic part)
When I was their age, I had a friend who made a Molotov cocktail (without knowing it's called that way) in order to send a mini-rocket to the moon. Today teens' "faites d'armes" consist in burning down libraries.

[Valentin]

Peter,

Concerning the events in november 2005, the police was in no way to blame for the death of the two kids. Normal people are NOT afraid of "stop-and-search". Normal kids even when they run away, don't hide inside a high-voltage transformer. No one threatened their lives, and no one pushed them inside that thing.
It's all about parenting, in the end.

[Valentin]

lol Maggie, the police will always be "des cons", they're there to annoy the population and limit liberties! They give parking tickets even for a two-minute stop, withdraw points for imaginary speed-limit trespassing. When they regulate traffic, they're always incompetent and blocking it. They never catch the thieves. Oh and I was forgetting, they always have a low IQ !

But I don't think this was the sense of Edward's "anti-police" question.

[Steve]

I don't agree with Daniel Strohl's comments above. Community Police Review Boards created more severe problems in troubled urban regions of the US. Community "activists" gravitate to such board positions and create a hostile invironment between police and affected community. Those with a criminal history become more emboldened because of "official and insider" support. Crime will go up. The police, wary of jeopardizing their lives or career, will back-peddle their enforcement activities. Police recruitment and retention will similarly go down. And criminal enterprizes will mushroom into severe problems.

[Christopher]

To the French-language commenter who suggests that all the French history we English-speakers know is about Vichy and Nazi collaboration, I beg to disagree. It was a fair comment, and hardly incendiary. As to the rioters, we in Western culture have created an entire sub-class: professional rioters. Whether LA, London or Paris, our repeated - and failed - attempts to "understand them" is what perpetuates the cycle. BAD BEHAVIOR IS BAD BEHAVIOR. The industrious don't riot. They work. Disenfranchisement from French society? I doubt it. We should not allow any rioter that excuse - not in Paris, not in LA, not in London.

[David]

The problem is France appears to be a lack of "community policing" and the much closer relationship between the police and citizens in the UK, for example.

After 18 months of living in France, I can only say that the image of the police in France is the diametric opposite to the friendly "bobby on the beat", no doubt because the French police act in a far more insular manner.

Worse, when it comes to intervention, the British police would (I believe / hope...) try to defuse the situation before intervening heavy-handedly - whereas in France, I was at a football match a few weeks ago, and the CRS (riot police) instantly used tear gas without any kind of warning, rather than engage their brain, let alone get their hands dirty.

[eygh]

For those of you genuinely interested in facts related to the present riots :

1- the two teens on the mini bike appear to be responsible for the accident, they crashed into the police car, not respecting a priority.

2- the policemen called the "pompiers" and waited on the spot until the ambulance arrived.

The policemen apparently did nothing wrong.

The atmosphere in the "quartiers" is bad and not getting better. Those kids who riot are pretty much out of control and they hate everybody but especially anyone representing any form of authority even the firemen.

I have absolutely no sympathy for these "casseurs pyromanes".

The present situation as well as the tensions with the police have, of course, absolutely nothing to do with Vichy.

I personally think that anybody using this dark period of French history as an argument or an explanation regarding France and the French in general in any discussion not relating to WWII (and even then the Vichy mantra is not always used for truth's sake) has absolutely nothing of interest nor of any relevance whatsoever to say and therefore should be ignored.

[Eric]

The article refers to public money shoveled into the 'sensitive zones.' This reminds me of a lecture I heard while studying urban planning in the US.

During the 'urban renwal' craze, slums were cleared and replaced with housing projects. In the beginning the 'projects' were not the horrific, dangerous places they became. They had many faults, and were ugly, but they were clean and modern. Yet, ultimately the new housing had no positive impact on the behavior of the residents. To paraphrase a columnist of the day, the residents were still 'the same rock throwing sons-of-bitches they always were.'

[azloon]

Steve --

i believe you meant me not Daniel Strohl (above). i asked if french cities have review boards. do you know? you sound as tho you do, and that the answer is no. and that you think that's fine.

i disagree. activists don't 'gravitate toward them," as you contend. they may try to influence the board, as may the police. no problem with that if board members are truly independent. public trust depends on the police not being allowed to run roughshod over any segment of the population. review boards help prevent this, imo. (it sounds as tho french police don't discriminate. they treat everyone poorly.)

Christopher is correct. good policing results from a good relationship with the communities served (operative word is 'served").

most of the world's police forces are authoritarian and brutal. that's the easiest way to operate. the west, for the most part, holds itself to a higher, more compassionate standard.

france has a lot of high-flown notions about it's moral, ethical and intellectual superiority. a brutal police force doesn't fit this picture the french have of themselves, imo.

ps france probably ought to deport these rioters (to algeria/morocco or wherever the hell they're from) if police brutality is the only method viewed as effective in dealing with them. police enforcement can be firm without being abusive. a radical notion, i'm sure, for some of the right-wingers on this board, but worth exploring.

[Daniel Strohl]

Peter,

"a thug in uniform who can beat them and kill them and get away with it".

If one should not forget what happened in WWII, to make this type of comparison and statement is nevertheless grossly exaggerated. Up to now, "only" 4 youngsters have lost their lives (at least to my knowledge) since 2005.

Furthermore, it is also imprudent (this is a litotes) to imply that they have been killed intentionally "by thugs in uniform" - this has absolutely not been proved. Up to the evidence of the contrary, I tend to believe more our judiciary authorities than rioters who hate and despise the police and "white" French as well.

Regarding youngsters (and even more drug dealers who manipulate them), I would agree with Christopher : "BAD BEHAVIOR IS BAD BEHAVIOR". It is even more than bad behaviour when fire arms are used against police, as it seemed to happen yesterday - 82 policemen wounded, some of them through fire arms, even if it was "only" through "armes à grenaille" (I don't know the English translation - may be shot arms ?) and "Molotov cocktails".

The police has strict orders not to fire back, which they could do easily "à la Tien An Men" - this would probably have the same result than overseas, i.e "le silence des cimetières".

Of course, no reasonable Frenchman (including the police force) wants that. And I am sure that it is also the case in other countries, where similar problems may as well happen.
As the French saying goes, "les mêmes causes produisent les mêmes effets". Therefore, teaching lessons out of London may be somewhat imprudent and premature.

[azloon]

So Sarko is the one, as interior minister, who eliminated community policing of the banlieues (see link below).

his bad.

it makes me wonder if the whole concept of community policing is beyond the grasp of the french mentality. it requires empathy and willingness to understand other points of view. judging from the many french posts on this blog, i really question if the average french person has these qualities in sufficient quantity.

the following reuters story about the riots pretty much nails the underlying problems:

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2745129620071127

france has it's work cut out for it.

[azloon]

re my previous reference to reuters story about riots

CB's full story in timesonline essentially says same thing as reuters story. it wasn't on the top of 'google news' so i didn't see it at first glance.

[azloon]

perusing various media, i have discovered answers to two of my questions about legal proceedures in riot situations.

1. there IS a police review authority which is considering the incident which precipitated the riots.

2. there were arrests of rioters which are described in the AFP news service article, excerpted below:

"Earlier, a court jailed eight youths over the clashes with police Sunday and Monday. Four were handed prison sentences ranging from three to 10 months"

i find it interesting that napoleanic law allows IMMEDIATE conviction and sentencing. did these rioters have attorneys representing them at their "trial?"

[Valerie]

It doesn't matter what the police are like or not, it doesn't matter what situation these suburbs are in or not. What does matter is that the reaction to the accidental deaths of two teens leads to DESTRUCTION and that is just plain W-R-O-N-G.

[Natty dread]

I live in France that is tipicaly what hapened in this country,policemen are always inocent whenever someone is dead, you can't imagine how live can be thought when you'are an arabic or black in this country,there is a special racism not between people in the street,but an institutional racism, politicians feed the racism by a lot of prejudice that why policemen can beat or arrested us without probleme,and finding a nice job is like a god gift. There fore all these situations create a lot of tensions between foreigners and french authorithies, even if if i was born there and i'have a french nationality i dont feel like a french man given that for them i'm just a black, life in france is an every day struggle for foreigners, those politicians from l'ENA,and SCIENCES PO,can't feel our madness french people call themself "the land of human right" actually is " the land of white men human right".

peace

Yes, pacifying rioters is definitely the answer. Let's just talk to people smashing glass and burning cars. Sensitivity training for the cops.

What world do some of you live in?

[Andrew O'Neill]

what this come down to is boredom and jealousy,IF you let in Africa you will have have african style violence the immigrants come to France for a better life and when they realise that no one is going to hand a beourgoise lifestyle to them on a plate they get angry and stomp their feet. Africa doesnt have the most progressive and industrious of cultures so we cant expect them to change just because they have changed location

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

Michel: 62 years ago? Why, it seems like only yesterday. Joan of Arc was burnt 576 years ago on the judgement of Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais and his assessors, theologians and doctors of the University of Paris, and the English have never been allowed to forget it. It takes only a spark to start a riot, with 35,000 blacks involved, as in Watts when the cops beat up Marquette Frye, 21, only 12 years ago, leading to 34 deaths.
Perhaps the kids' parents do not remember the 39-45 war, but their grandparents will, especially some of the 200,000 in the Algerian Division, the 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division and the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division, called "indigenes" and "wogs" and given paltry pensions.
Valentin: Parenting? Maybe their parents told them how their parents were treated after 1945.

[Carole]

It is clear that whether the kids or the police were to blame for the accident, criminal gangs are using the tension to organise looting and direct police attention elsewhere. As many of you are commenting, French police are very different from British police (as a Brit living in Paris I can only compare these two). Here in France there are several different kinds of police, but they all seem arrogant, officious and heavy-handed. It may simply be cultural differences, but even I as a white, law-abiding European (I am not suggesting anyone who is not white or European is a criminal, merely describing myself) feel quite a lot of resentment towards the French police for the way they behave. I have been stopped countless times on my bike for infringements I have not made, and occasionally been forced to pay fines for things I don't believe I have done. It is easy to see that the attitude of the police here, combined with racial prejudice, can cause a serious breakdown in relations between police and deprived communities.
With regards to the rioting, this reaction is deplorable, but the people who are encouraging and profiting from this are the criminal gangs. They are the ones who need to be stopped.

[L. Tahir]

"Does the apparently virulent anti-police sentiment in France follow from their cooperation with the nazis in Vichy during the occupation ?"

Not necessary to go that far, just read the Amnesty International Report about French police :
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/fraeur210012005

[eygh]

How about riots in the UK ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1355718.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2777823.stm

I wonder what might have caused those numerous riots in the UK since Britain has known no Vichy gouvernment, the British police is so much better than the French one and Britain has been such a better, more respectful colonial power ?

Talking about nazi thugs :

http://www.cpim.org/pd/2001/july22/july222k1_uk.htm

It kind of put some comments on France and the French into perspective doesn't it ?

[JuanE]

I think its hard to blame one side or the other for a problem that has taken a few decades to fester and that has gained full force in the past years, and that probably has a long way to go before it hits rock bottom. With hindsight it's easy to argue there was too much unqualified immigragion, that the assimilation was doomed from the start, that its a cultural problem, and ... God knows what else. And given that it is unlikely to deport/expel the troublemakers (how to identify the good from the bad?), or shoot them all, or put them im camps, then the efforts of the debate should center more on what to do to diffuse the situation and solve the problems? To me a carrot and a stick comes to mind.

[Armand83]

It seems that everybody ignore here that now firemen, nurses, bus drivers are also attacked. Is it related with vichy ?

[Amir]

Tim - "every Muslim is a potential terrorist". Your comment is ridiculous. I notice you are German? It is the same as saying that every German is a potential Nazi! (rubbish!)

[Lily]

Burning cars, schools and libraries along with aggression against law and order need to be approached at different levels:

The tip of the iceberg calls for police/CRS action (put the offenders in prisons – but then, look at the state of prisons in France: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_en_France !) –

If that is all that is getting done, the bottom will broaden and grow stronger. That “base” cannot be diffused by any simple quick action. To solve problems there requires an efficient “plan social”: an increase in employment opportunities; social workers and psychologists who look into the problems of the youth and then into the problems of the very young which would be less obvious but promise best results in the long run. This approach requires sensitivity and would involve parenting, of course.

Global warming should help melt the ice but there is no sign of social global warming, unfortunately.

The theory is pretty obvious, isn't it?

It is of minor importance whether the youth seek justification through Nazi or any other role models. They are angry and frustrated, and that is not BECAUSE OF these models!

[Saint-Hamont]

I was waiting lately for the pedestrian light to turn green to go across the rue de Rivoli in the middle of "bourgeois" Paris. I was standing beside a policeman who was regulating the heavy automobile trafic. The light went red for cars. Right in front of us both a man was driving his car without his safety belt on. The policeman could have levied a fine but he merely told the man that he was putting his own life in danger. To this, the man, "un Français moyen" suddenly poured forth an incredible torrent of insults most of them regarding the sexual life of the cop's mother... The light went green, and the man disappeared still with his safety belt off. I was dumbstruck by this outpour of senseless verbal agression. When asked the policeman shrugged and simply told me this happened ten times a day. Now picture yourself being a policeman in France and making your daily rounds in a "quartier sensible"... Would YOU be that cool?...

[jurina33]

I myself live near Bordeaux and have been for the last ten years. I am English, speak fluent french, work in a legal office, pay income tax etc.etc.... I was brought up with the image of the english policeman who is 'there to help'. I was extremely shocked and upset by the way the french police on numerous occasions has treated me. Oh by the way, I forgot to say I am of Indian origin! They are constantly trying to provoke me whenever I have been in contact with them- when my car was stolen for example, laughing out loud and going to see the youngsters in the council flat where I used to live saying that the people who come to the police station are hypocrits and unfortunately not brave enough to confront the people themselves!! I could not beleive my ear the first time. the second time, the officers were standing just behind my car and I could not manouevre therefore I kindly asked them to move out of the way in order not to hurt them. The response was an extremely arrogant and dedanious look and of course they did not move. So I have to manoeuvre about ten times in order not to touch them and be able to leave my parking space. Had I touched them, I would obviously have spent the evening in jail. The third time, I was siiting at the back of the car with my son, coming back from a restaurant with my husband driving. The police officer was stopping everyone and once he got to us stuck his face round the door and batently sais 'and who's she?' (et c'est qui ça?). My husband calmly told him I was his wife to which he ansewered 'et c'est la mère?'. Had I been a young blond woman I don't think either of the questions would have occured to the policeman. I am not scared of the police usually but being questionned as if guilty, being spoken to rudely, having to justify the fact that my son is my son and that I am not the 'nanny', that I do speak perfect french, (oh and english and german by the way!) one becomes reticent and one does harbour ill feelings towards the national police force. I therefore understand the feeling the french have towards their police. The police over here abuse of their power. But this happens absolutely everywhere, as soon as someone is upgraded in a job, they start abusing of their power and position. It can be seen in the private sector as well as in the public sector.
As for the people living in the 'banlieus', I hope that the violence shall be condemned. However, feeling an outcast, a no good and with no real future, they feel obliged to be a part of something. In other words, all human beings require a sense of belonging. Their cités give them that sense, whether they like the values or not. They would all like to get out of it and be allowed to have the same opportunities as a youngster brought up in the suburbs but unfortunately they do not. Even though money is largely spent in theses 'cités' once they are confronted with 'training', many bosses do not want an 'arabe' or a 'noir' in the office. They do not access jobs or even the training for a certain sector. I remember at first going round looking for a job, people would not even receive me let alone look at my cv. My second job, the boss told me that I should know that I had 'to make more of an effort than my colleagues seeing that I was coloured'. Luckily I am from a loving family with a public school education and an open mind which has given me the weapons to fight this institutional racism which is very perceptible when you are an 'immigrant' in France.

[d]

Jobs requiring little skills that would have been done by immigrants have gone offshore. Even a degree holder with a -non French- name can't find a job that he is qualify to do. It is impossible to integrate if you feel you don't or can't contribute. Worse if you are told you are good for nothing just because of the colour of your skin, your ancestors weren’t Gaulois and you should go back to where you come from, even if you were born on French soil. Just thinking up the law on the " positive aspects of the French Colonisation" makes you realise the state is applying white paint to a cracking wall and can't let go of old beliefs.

[john o'doe]

Sorry to be nitpickingly trite but was that bijouterie a 'jewelry' or a 'jewellery' shop'? If it was the former then shouldn't you have gone the whole Americanised hog and called it a 'jewelry store'?

[Thanks John. It was a bijouterie of course. I have nothing against American words, especially if they're shorter than British and since many of the readers of this blog are in the US, Australia and other non-Brit nations. CB]

[raindrop]

this speaks for itself:
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3224,36-983236,0.html?xtor=RSS-3208

[Richard, Paris]

Well said Jurina33. I Unfortunately the white French are in total denial of the deepseated institutionalised racism that exists here. But just go into any French white collared "business" and count the non whites. It won't take you very long !! I work for one of the largest French banks and can't remember the last time I attended a meeting with any non white staff. Just coincidence !! And these same white French people will tell you that racism and the blatant discrimination you describe doesn't exist or if it does only in a few national front voters. White French friends are very surprised and slightly shocked that I live in the Goutte d'Or quartier of Paris...only because I am white. When they remember I am English they usually put the choice down to typical English eccentricity.

I don't condone violence physical or otherwise. But the people stuck in the run down sink estates endure state sponsored abuse daily. I lived for 18 months in the notorious Cité de la Noë in Chanteloup les Vignes outside Paris. My ID wasn't checked once. But I my neighbours' ID was checked almost daily. The police knew their names already "Ahmed, tes papiers !!" In fact in 15 years of living in France a policeman has never asked me for any ID. If I had endured what they have to I'm not sure that I wouldn't be one of those rioters too....there but for the grace of God....

[textibule]

I'm a little surprised by the heavy-handedness of the comments here, uncommon for this blog. Also surprising is that the comments focus almost entirely on Police.

I'm a white male American who has been living here in la France profonde (SW section) for 25 years. It has been a loooong time that I haven't thought about Misery in the ghetto as being Society's fault. (Bad, bad society!)

But today at 11h42 I sincerely believe that

1) French police do have a certain thuggishness about them that was probably written into the Napoleonic code. This makes it very difficult to change. I've met a few flics, though, who were kind, helpful, and not at all arrogant, although never, ever in Paris, except once at a dinner party. When I am stopped in my car for a 'routine' control, I am courteously saluted, and am never asked (as i once was in Oklahoma USA before getting a 250$ ticket for doing 51 in a 50 zone) "How yo'all doin today?"

2) France likes to think of itself as a 'terre d'accueil' (Land of Welcoming), but I have been suspicious of this for a long time. It looks too much like feel-good psycho-fantasme (sycophantisme?). For 3 generations, the formula has been (and I am trying to eliminate any traces of irony here), "Welcome to France. Here are the keys to your apartment in the 'Cité'. Here is your free healthcare voucher. Here is your monthly dot. There's probably more we can give you if you're willing to spend more time waiting in administration offices. Up to you. All we ask, and we really must insist, is that you don't even think about getting a job that a real Frenchpersonne can do or might conceivably want to do."
And so it goes. Until 3 generations later...

3) As a 'good' outsider in French society, ie, male, white, self-employed, I am amazed to realize how few non-white frenchpersonnes I've met over the years. I do meet people constantly, professionally, through friends, through enemies, at the supermarket checkout, walking in the park. France is just not a diverse ethnic place in the quotidien.

So, there is something wrong with this picture, and when I read CB's blog today, this is what I think about.

Respectfully submitted,

[CH]

Jobs (or lack of them).

This is at the root of a lot of France's social unrest. The young inhabitants of the banlieues (suburbs) are very often unemployed (or will grow up to be, and know this), and until this changes, and they have more of stake and a place in French society, the violence is likely to continue.

I am a recent immigrant to France (but am of European origin, white and highly educated and qualified, attributes which few French suburb-dwellers possess). Despite these undoubted "advantages", it took me nearly two years to find a job here.

As a consequence of my difficulties, I do not feel much affection towards France and scarcely any loyalty at all. My feelings are more a mixture of anger and scorn for a system that makes it so hard to find a job and resentment at the memory of how excluded I felt from society while I was unemployed, and how very isolated.

Contrast this with the positive feelings that most immigrants to the US have about that country, which lets them work, contribute and build their lives.

France doesn't integrate its immigrants well. The attitude is more or less, 'Take us as we are or lump it/leave'. Until this changes, expect problems to continue. Making the job market more flexible and easier to break into would be the first step towards changing this.

[Valentin]

I can't help noticing those who speak about Vichy and nazis are those who lived through that period.
They tend to refer to it at every event reminding them of it.

Those born much later, like me, especially if their parents and grand parents were almost unaffected by war, don't relate the same way to the WW2.
I for instance, looking at the 4-year WW2, am much more shocked by the 70 years of fanatical communism Russia and China experienced - no matter what criteria one would use.

As to racism, France can be very difficult for immigrants (and their offspring) if you don't understand how it functions. France is not US, open to all people and cultures. France is French above all, and if a newcomer takes refuge in frustration and anger, he just isolates himself more. Everything is about culture, so of course Europeans, christians, whites integrate much easier.

What Natty Dread says is mostly true, but I would like to hear his reaction to Andrew O'Neill's post.

If someone looked at the same type of riots happening elsewhere, the conclusion would be, there's always about africans and arabs. Leftwing social angels will say it is so because the society is still racist underneath, they get far little chances, they remain poor and excluded (testimonies abound of this, for instance the test of the CVs with foreign names vs French ones).
Rightwing "nazi thugs" will reply the african and arab culture is one of hot temper, defiance towards law and authority, difficulty to discipline and abide to the rules (employers in Spain will tell you they prefer Eastern European workers vs Africans by far, and not because of skin colour).

Probably both are true, more or less.

What's new in these riots, compared to previous times, is however the YOUNG AGE of the vandals. We can't even speak of youngsters, they're kids of 14-15 brought up in a gang culture doubled by May'68 culture, which brought intolerable lenience and destruction of grownups authority, and authority in general.

Probably a good spanking by their parents would do much more than prison to bring these kids back where they belong.
But then you have to catch them first! :)

[Valentin]

"White French friends are very surprised and slightly shocked that I live in the Goutte d'Or quartier of Paris...only because I am white."

Oh come on Richard, it's not because you're white, they're amazed that you can live in such uncivilized spot! Sometimes it looks more like Mali than Paris - I would know, I lived near Porte de Clignancourt, and when I couldn't take the drinking youngsters on my street, the gangs hanging around and the metro line 4 anymore, I moved to the 15th.

(and guess who're the troublemakers now? An arab family; they're quite well off, and doing nothing really bad; but their noisy ways and thug behaviour is still in stark contrast to the neighbourhood; this is the problem, not their skin colour, the beards or the clothes)

[Valentin]

"In fact in 15 years of living in France a policeman has never asked me for any ID."

Same here, Richard. It's because you probably look like a civilized person, who doesn't need to feel the authority's eye to be so.

[Valentin]

CH:
"am a recent immigrant to France (but am of European origin, white and highly educated and qualified, attributes ... it took me nearly two years to find a job here."

Once when I looked for a job, I found one within 2 months. Where I work now (finance - hence white collar), there are arabs, jews, chinese, vietnamese, algerian... they could not care less.
It's about job market my friend, you work in the wrong field, that's all :)

[Barbara Grasset]

I feel that "raindrop" is not being totally fair in comparing the incident in southern France and the accident in Villiers ... the first was criminal negligence on the part of the police -who are in the process of being punished. No extreme violence happened as a result. In Viliers, and elsewhere, we have to put up with what I can only call terrorism on the roads by youths driving dangerously and unprotected on these doctored bikes - the accident was tragic but avoidable and my local council has tried to encourage civic reponsibility - until somebody dies here we will have to put

[Harold Strauss]

There needs to be retrabution paid for the damages that these kids have done. This sort of behavior should "never" be tolerated. They should petition the city for some releif if the police are
abusive verbually or other. The taxpayers are the ones who should be angry, they're the ones paying for the damages they do. Neighborhood committes should be formed as a go between to find a peaceful solution. Out of control "kids" shouls be deported along with their family

[azloon]

[Probably a good spanking by their parents would do much more than prison to bring these kids back where they belong.
But then you have to catch them first! :)] Valentin

Vee, here i am, now that you don't need me. :)

your post cited above encapsulates all that is misguided about french policy and attitudes toward immigrants. first of all, you can forget about 'good spankings.' won't happen.

i am astonished by the level of bigotry and ignorance of the typical 'white' french post on this blog in the face of articulate non-white, and foreign, reaction to the riots, and the experience of non-french living in france.

your comments about 'acceptance of french culture' (whatever that means) being the key to successful integration, that france is 'different' from everywhere else in the world, is unfortunately so predictable from you. continuing in this delusion will not work to france's advantage in this, and most other matters as well. your supposed intellectual superiority, subtlety, complexity of thought are a mirage and a smokescreen. they blind you to the reality of this situation, and the necessary changes to make things better.

there is an equivalent segment in u.s. society which sees social change as the work of agitator leftists who don't 'appreciate our wonderful' system.' fortunately, their views have not prevailed during critical periods of social unrest when changes were essential.

in fairness to france, it is easier for an immigrant nation, such as the u.s., to deal with social unrest (not to mention not having to deal with large numbers of muslim newcomers). but we have our peculiar difficult issues, such as bringing fairness to african-americans, whose ancestors we enslaved. it's hard stuff. if france had the flexibilty (doubtful) and political will, it would do better than it currently is.....IF that what the majority wants.

when eighty police are killed, instead of injured, france, likely, will rethink it's attitudes, or default into a police state.

[ms marple]

Harold Strauss: "They should petition the city for some releif if the police are
abusive verbually or other."
Are you serious? Have you ever tried taking on French administration or the police for verbal abuse? Or any part of it for anything?
Azloon, much higher up the list of comments you mention the "trials" and convictions of some of the rioters. In France, and I think it's one of the Sarkozist measures from his Min Interior days (sous réserve), there is a system of "comparution immédiate" for situations needing rapid action justice. This system doesn't only apply to this kind of situation, but often, it does. Of course the people subject to comparution immédiate are legally represented and can be found innocent if that's what they are, rather than automatically guilty. At least that's the theory. . . :)