French violence polarizing the country as the whole world watches

By Jerome le Carrou

Editor's note: Jerome le Carrou is a student from France taking classes at USU.

November 13, 2005 | "I am trying to be polite. I think this kind of behavior is not going to assuage the angriness in the ghetto,"said a young black teenager to a policeman after he arrested him for the third time in two hours.

"Listen to me, here you are not home, you have to understand that the more violent you guys are going to be, the more we are going to kick you and punch you. Actually we love it. Continue to spread angriness and violence, it gives us a better reason to have fun kicking you out of here," answered the policeman while punching the kid.

"But that's stupid. So you guys are just looking forward to kick us and punch us?" said a young black guy.

"We can even do more than that. I am sure you remembered what happen to your friends who burned in an electrical box on the railway, we can help you to grill inside if you want us to, it's not a big deal, you are nothing," said the policeman.

This conversation was secretly videotaped by a French national news outlet in La Courneuve, one of many Paris ghettos. Some policemen who have been assigned to the suburbs, start changing into racists as they are stigmatized by young gangs and can't bear it longer. This sums up the deep sickness of our French society.

To understand the roots of this burning issue, we have to get back to the 1950s. During that time, the French invited a lot of immigrants to join its nation. A flock of Moroccans, Algerians and other Africans from former colonies came to France to find a job and help the French economy to revive after the second World War.

But since they arrived, their status have changed and little by little they started to be excluded. Buildings that turned into ghettos were created in every big city in France and all the foreigners started living together at the threshold of the society.

These horrible, gloomy, gray, tall buildings didn't help integration. On the contrary they favored exclusion as the bad living conditions and the proximity of every apartment reduced the inhabitants' freedom. The reality is these communities from Africa are living in captivity.

Nothing has never been done for the children of those who came to help rebuild France, in terms of employment, integration or quality of life. The government has decided to totally ignore the suburbs and their problems.

The problem stayed in abeyance for a long time. Barely embarrassed by the couple of murders every year in suburbs, the government never took drastic measures.

We had our first warning during the last presidential election. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the president of "le front national" (the extreme right wing party), invited himself to the second round of the elections. France woke up with a terrible headache the next day and didn't understand. Surfing on the wave of recent suburbs violence and the fear of the young immigrant gangs, he found support among retired people or people who have always had a tie with extremism but didn't have the opportunity to express it. Fortunately, France woke up on time and Le Pen didn't poll more than 20 percent.

Since April, things went further. French Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy acted in a provocative way after a young kid was accidentally killed by a lost bullet while two rival gangs were fighting.

Sarkozy went to the hometown of the kid, a suburb in Ile de France, close to Paris, and said in front of a massive crowd that he is planning to clean these suburbs with a "high pressure water stream."

All the suburbs' inhabitant didn't forget about this provocative sentence; they haven't forgiven him yet.

Violence and resentment have reached their climax these last days, increasing suddenly and dramatically after two kids were found dead in an electrical box close to a railway in Paris suburbs. Policemen had been running after them.

After this drama, the pressure was too high to be contained and everything exploded. This civil insurrection was bound to happen. A lot of people had hopes for peace while others secretly were expecting a big civil disorder to finally put an end to years of discord, resentment, racial violence, civil aggressions, murders.

Let's take a deep breath before diving into the civil urban war, a conflict where you can see thousands of immigrants between 10 and 30 years old burning cars, schools, hospitals, state properties, buses.

It is hard to believe that youngsters of 10 years old are outside at night burning cars, but it is the cruel reality. Some parents in poor suburbs don't assume their roles of models anymore, and kids have to learn by themselves the rules of live, but they will most likely learn the rules of the streets and how to deal drugs. It is hard not to have successful models, their only models are people in their 20s, 30s who are unemployed and drugs dealers.

Violence reached a new peak three days ago when an innocent person was killed after having been molested to death. More than 5,000 cars have burned, hundreds of young rebels have been arrested.

Is Paris burning again? Actually, it would be more accurate to ask if the whole country is burning.

Some American news channel have been very critical toward the French government. I heard some say these riots are a good thing, in the sense that the entire world is now able to realize how weak is the French government.

My country is not burning but it is true that violence has spread all over France, even in my town of 50,000 inhabitants close to the seaside, 300 miles west of Paris. Monday night, 30 cars were burned.

My city has never been a very dangerous one, but as in every city in France, we do have a lot of immigrants who don't have any jobs and who are angry about our institutions and even against the whole population. In my city, there are two suburbs in which people are originally from North Africa, they have set their own community, they have their own rules within France.

I don't have any resentment against poor immigrants, but I have to say that I and some friends have been attacked a lot of times while shopping or just walking in my city. One time, I had a knife pointed on me, the kids in front of me were not older than 15, and just wanted cigarettes.

A month after it happened to me, a kid of 12 was stabbed at a bus station, he was just waiting for the bus and was just unlucky he didn't have some smokes in his pockets.

I have to admit, they haven't been correctly assimilated to our rules, culture, but some of them simply don't want to be assimilated and hate France.

After the recent riots, the French government has decided to take drastic measures. A state of emergency has been announced, curfews are yet applicable by every major that feels unsecured in his town.

Our government has been long to react, but not angry citizens, or extreme political parties.

Owners of storage rooms for cars said they will have their revenge after seeing their goods disappear in smokes and ashes.

The worst is that many of the cars that have been burned are owned by poor people of the suburbs that needed it to work and thus survive. People don't understand exactly why they have been targeting by these gangs living in the same suburbs.

These riots haven't been planned or premeditated. They are disorganized. Violence is one way for poor suburbs inhabitants to express themselves, as they don't have the chance to do it very often.

I think it is a violent way of saying they are still alive, as the government has decided to ignore them, they want to show the world they don't want to be ignored anymore, they want to be heard, they need to.

In our society, every conflict ends in a violent way. It seems to be normal. In France when farmers are unhappy because they have lost some goods, they destroy supermarkets, fight against the cops, destroy some states property. When syndicalist are not happy, they demonstrate and fight against the cops.

The riots in poor neighborhoods are not considered as normal as it is in other cases. I would like to understand why it is perceived differently, violence has been used as a mean of provocation among young rioters but also farmers or syndicalist and even students.

These riots are giving credits to racists and the extreme right wing.

Extreme political parties have never been as popular than right after the beginning of this civil disorder.

The leader of the royalist party in France is still wondering why President Chirac has not sent the army yet. He also recommend the cops to shoot with real bullets, and stop the immigration flux right now.

It is a chance for these political parties to recruit by taking advantage of the situation, as a way to increase their notoriety in the perspective of the next presidential elections in 2007.

These riots are surely not a good example to follow, even though copycats riots have started in some other European countries. But it is a good example to think about, integration or assimilation are crucial, especially in countries in which immigrants are numerous.

Ethnic differences among a nation have to be interpreted as a chance and not as a burden, efforts have to be made to assimilate immigrants. We have to change the image tainted of violence that stands for poor suburbs to a better one made of hope and success.

To put in a nutshell, the values of the French republic, which are fraternity, equality and freedom, are vacillating. The time has come for us to face our responsibilities and to restore the image of a country abandoned by its politics.

The world is watching us and is holding its breath. . . .

MS
MS