French Riots Expose Racial Fault Lines, Ignorance and Hypocrisy

http://observer.bard.edu/articles/opinions/163

French Riots Expose Racial Fault Lines, Ignorance and Hypocrisy
BY TRAVIS WENTWORTH
Wed, Nov 30, 2005

In the French media coverage of Hurricane Katrina, one could detect a certain element of satisfaction in the way nature unveiled gaping American socioeconomic disparities. In the US, it was generally Democrats who spoke of this issue for political gain. While the American media tended to focus more simply on the facts and logistical implications of the damage, the French media was more inclined to spotlight the US hegemon’s Achilles heel: the neglected lower class, and the invisible race barriers that still exist within the borders of this bastion of freedom, democracy and prosperity.

The uprising in France in the past two weeks has made abundantly clear the ignorance, hypocrisy and intransigence that plagues the French socioeconomic and political system. The problem’s roots stretch back to French colonial days and the industrial boom that took place a decade after WWII, but in recent months the situation has been exacerbated by France’s tough-talking and polarizing interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who has repeatedly used such terms as “thugs,” “low-lifes,” and “scum” to describe the poor, generally immigrant and Muslim-populated suburbs. His “zero-tolerance” campaign against crime has resulted in notorious police brutality and further marginalization of these immigrant groups. “If you’re treated like a dog, you act like a dog,” said a resident of Clichy-sous-Bois, northeast of Paris, as quoted in the New York Times.

In spite of their religion and skin color, though, most of these people are, on paper, as French as Sarkozy himself. Most carry the French nationality, and many come from families who have been in the country for several generations. In the name of l’égalité (equality), one of the three pillars of French society (with liberté [liberty] and fraternité [fraternity] completing the list), France has pursued a policy that prevents recognition of cultural, ethnic and religious differences by the government. “They say integrate, but I don’t understand: I’m already French, what more do they want?” said a man quoted in the Times who moved to France from Algeria in 1971. “They want me to drink alcohol?”

The constant invocation of equality is merely a front behind which the French government has practiced its separatism, and they are now suffering the consequences of such propaganda. Regardless of education, minorities regularly find difficulties in landing decent jobs, and discriminating landlords make it difficult for immigrants to find housing outside of the suburban villes nouvelles, “new cities,” created to accommodate the burgeoning immigrant population without compromising the age-old homogeneity of the bourgeois inner cities. In addition, police forces remain startlingly white, resulting in officers’ fear of these residents and the abuse that follows as a result of that fear. The government could benefit from following the example of countries like Britain and the US, where the police forces more often reflect the diversity of the population; instead, minorities in France feel disenfranchised and distrust the police officers and, by extension, the government.

France has been fitfully slow to respond to the growing violence. It took ten days for president Jacques Chirac to publicly acknowledge the civil unrest and the official response. This is partially due to internal competition in the government between Sarkozy and the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, both of whom hold high ambitions for the 2007 presidential election. De Villepin, formerly the foreign minister, has taken a highly diplomatic approach, choosing words carefully in an attempt to recognize societal problems and reasons for the existence of dispute without condoning violence or diverging from the hard-line position of his party. As yet, though, he has failed to divulge any detailed plan of action. Most of the leg work has fallen on the CRS, France’s elite riot police, who have difficulty discerning when and where attacks will take place, and who are instructed to avoid offensive action lest they exacerbate the situation further. But as police chiefs have pointed out, many officers are at their wits’ end after two weeks of intense, nightly riot control.

In the wake of the attacks, Sarkozy has been criticized for his role in furthering the city/suburb and native/immigrant dichotomies, though his critics are far fewer than one might expect. He is less overtly racist and radical than, say, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who garnered a staggering 20% of the French vote in the 2002 presidential election on his platform of white supremacy, closed borders, and immigrant exclusion. It appears that Sarkozy, as a more politically plausible candidate, is appealing to this portion of the population with his hard-line policy. Enigmatically, though, Sarkozy has been one of the only politicians who have dared to advocate integration through American-style affirmative action.

The French press (and the overall French sentiment backing it) was right in its (albeit condescending) criticism of the fact that overwhelmingly lower-class black communities were left in New Orleans after Katrina. The French were correct in their observations that the US has not yet recovered from the days of de facto racial segregation, and that cultural rifts, fueled by persistent economic disparities, hinder America’s claim to universal equality. They were right in complaining on behalf of the victims that aid was too slow in coming as a result of gross disorganization while New Orleans drowned. Yet as Paris burns, it is these exact themes that have become all too familiar to the French.

Though some implications are similar, an obvious and crucial difference between Katrina and the violence in France is that the former is a natural disaster: quite the opposite of the willful civil uprising seen in France. Yet while the hurricane involved all those without the means to evacuate, the riots have failed to mobilize the entirety of immigrant communities. Rioters are generally aged between 12 and 25, overwhelmingly male, and do not garner support from the older populations, who yearn to see civility restored. As Olivier Roy stated in a recent NY Times editorial, “Nobody should be surprised that efforts by the government to find ‘community leaders’ have had little success. There are no leaders in these areas for a very simple reason: there is no community in the neighborhoods.” Marauding youth groups are seeking to define their own community identities in the absence of a clearer community hierarchy. Thus a principle reason behind the uprising is that the banlieus remain largely anarchic as a result of systematic marginalization. France needs to stop renouncing these areas and treat them with the same respect as places inhabited by natives.

This feeling of disconnection causes many French teens to be easily swept into the violent torrent and excitement of violence, even without consciously objecting to the practices of the government. Nevertheless, they recognize symbols of wealth, establishment, and social mobility, as evidenced by the torching of cars. This is becoming the signature act of protest: over 4,000 cars have thus far been burned throughout the country. The vehicle is an aspiration, an unattainable object signifying freedom. But they do not have this mobility—they can neither afford it, nor hope to afford it, so they burn it. The burning vehicle is one of many images that symbolizes the current situation in France--it is, in many ways, a manifestation of a culture war that has been in the works for years is finally surfacing.
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