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2005 French riots

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A series of violent acts throughout France began near Paris on October 27 2005 and have continued for eleven consecutive nights. [1]

Cities affected by sustained rioting as of 6 November
Rioting areas in the Paris region as of 4 November

These acts mainly consist of car and building arsons, and sometimes lead to riots, violent clashes occurring between hundreds of youths, mostly of North African Muslim[2] descent [3] and the French Police.

The rioting was triggered by the deaths of two teenagers in Clichy-sous-Bois, a poor commune in an eastern banlieue (suburb) of Paris. Violence then spread to other parts of Seine-Saint-Denis. Additional violence has now spread to other areas of the Île-de-France région (Seine-et-Marne, Val-d'Oise, Suresnes) as well as to other cities in France (Rouen, Dijon, Toulouse, Lille, Paris, and other cities) [4][5][6][7]).

Sunday night and early Monday was the worst night of violence so far with 1,408 vehicles torched, 395 people arrested, and incidents still increasing in other cities throughout France. [8] Rioters have fired on police with pistols and shotguns in the southern Parisian suburb of Grigny, injuring 30 policemen, three of them seriously.[9]. As of Monday the first fatality was reported of an eldarly man in Paris.[10] Altogether, the rioting is the worst to hit France since the 1968 student revolt [11].

Trigger for recent violence

On Thursday October 27, 2005, a group of 10 high school teenagers were playing soccer in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. When Police arrived to conduct immigration-ID checks, they ran away to hide. Three of them, thinking they were being chased by the police, climbed a wall to hide in a power substation[12] [13]. "Bouna Traore, a 15-year-old of Mali [or Mauritanian [14] ] background, and Zyed Benna, a 17-year-old of Tunisian origin" [15] were electrocuted by a transformer in the electrical relay substation. A third youth, Muttin Altun, 17, was injured and has been hospitalized.

The New York Times reports, citing two police investigations, that the incident began at 5:20 p.m. on Thursday, October 27 in Clichy-sous-Bois when Police were called to a construction site there to investigate a possible break in. Six youths were detained by 5:50 p.m. During questioning at the police station in Livry-Gargan at 6:12 p.m. blackouts occured at the station and in nearby areas. These were caused, police say, by the electrocution of the two boys and the injury of the third.

"According to statements by Mr. Altun, who remains hospitalized with injuries, a group of 10 or so friends had been playing soccer on a nearby field and were returning home when they saw the police patrol. They all fled in different directions to avoid the lengthy questioning that youths in the housing projects say they often face from the police. They say they are required to present identity papers and can be held as long as four hours at the police station, and sometimes their parents must come before the police will release them." [16]

There is controversy over whether or not the teens were actually chased. The local prosecutor, François Molins, has said they believed so, but the police were actually after other suspects attempting to avoid an identity check [17]. Molins and Sarkozy maintain that the dead teenagers had not been "physically pursued" by the police. This is disputed by some: The Australian reports that "Despite denials by police officials and M Sarkozy and M de Villepin, friends of the boys said they were being pursued by police after a false accusation of burglary and that they 'feared interrogation'" [18].

Then, Sunday night, a tear gas canister of the type used by French police was fired into the Mosque de Bousquets[19]. At the time it was full of Muslims who were spending the night praying to celebrate Laylat al-Qadr, the holiest night in Ramadan.

Meanwhile, populist hardliner Sarkozy (who heads the national police and is widely believed to be a candidate in the French Presidential election) vowed that he would get rid of "scum" and "riffraff"[20][21]. Previously, on June 20, 2005, he had said he would clean the suburbs with a high-powered hose, which might have played a role in the exasperation of the rioters. After Sarkozy made these statements the parents of the dead youths refused a planned meeting with the hardline conservative minister [22], choosing instead to meet with Prime Minister of France Dominique de Villepin.

The teenagers' deaths, the tear gassing at the mosque, and statements by police seem to have ignited pre-existing tensions. Protesters told the Associated Press the unrest was an expression of frustration with high unemployment and police harassment in the areas. One protester said, "People are joining together to say we've had enough," and continued, "We live in ghettos. Everyone lives in fear." [23][24] The rioters' suburbs are also home to a large North African immigrant population, adding ethnic and religious tensions which many believe contribute further to such frustrations. Adding to the religious tensions, an incendiary device was tossed at the wall of a synagogue and three Catholic churches have been attacked with Molotov cocktails. It remains to be seen whether this will elicit a response from the French Jewish community[25], many of whose members fear to wear Jewish symbols due to annual trend of increasing attacks by youth [26]. For further discussion on the background of the conflicts, see below.

Timeline

File:2005 Paris suburb riots.jpg
Youths and riot police face off in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois on October 29 2005.


  • Thursday, October 27 - 1st night of rioting
    • Gangs, mostly consisting of hundreds of youths, clashed with police, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at police forces and firefighters, setting cars on fire, and vandalizing buildings. A shot was reportedly fired at police. [27]
    • Police fired tear gas at the rioters. About 27 people were detained. 23 police officers and 1 journalist were wounded. The number of rioters and bystanders injured is not known.[28]
    • French employee Jean-Claude Irvoas is beaten to death by youths in Épinay-sur-Seine in front of wife and 16 year-old daughter. [29]
  • Friday, October 28 - 2nd night of rioting
    • Rioters in Clichy-sous-Bois apparently set more than 30 cars alight and made barricades of those cars, along with dustbins, which firefighters worked to clear away.
    • At least 200 riot police and crowds of young rioters clashed in on-and-off, running battles, on the night of the 28th and the early morning of the 29th. [30]
  • Saturday, October 29 - 3rd night of rioting
    • About 500 people took part in a silent march through Clichy-sous-Bois, in memory of the teenagers. [31] Representatives of the Muslim community appealed for calm and dignity at the procession. Marchers wore t-shirts printed with the message mort pour rien "dead for nothing". [32]
  • Sunday, October 30 - 4th night of rioting
    • A tear gas grenade was launched into the de Bousquets mosque, on what for Muslims is the holiest night of the holy month of Ramadan. Police denied responsibility but acknowledged that it was the same type used by French riot police. Speaking to 170 police officers at Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture in Bobigny (the local authority overseeing Clichy-sous-Bois), Nicolas Sarkozy said, "I am, of course, available to the Imam of the Clichy mosque to let him have all the details in order to understand how and why a tear gas bomb was sent into this mosque." Eyewitnesses also reported that police called women emerging from the mosque "whores" and other names [33].
  • Monday, October 31 - 5th night of rioting
    • It was reported that the rioting had spread to other parts of Seine-Saint-Denis. In nearby Montfermeil, the municipal police garage was set on fire.
    • Michel Thooris, an official of police trade union Action Police CFTC (who only represents a minority of the police civil servants), described the unrest as a "civil war" and called on the French Army to intervene. [34]
  • Tuesday, November 1 - 6th night of rioting
    • Rioting had spread to nine other suburbs, across which 69 vehicles were torched.
    • A total of 150 arson attacks on garbage cans, vehicles and buildings were reported.
    • The unrest was particularly intense in Sevran, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Bondy, all in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, which is considered to be a "sensitive area of immigration and modest incomes."
    • In Sevran, youths set fire to two rooms of a primary school, along with several cars. Three officers were slightly injured. [35]
    • In Aulnay-sous-Bois, rioters threw Molotov cocktails at the town hall and rocks at the firehouse; police fired rubber bullets at advancing rioters.
    • French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin "met Tuesday with the parents of the three families, promising a full investigation of the deaths and insisting on 'the need to restore calm,' the prime minister's office said." [36]
  • Wednesday, November 2 - 7th night of rioting
    • Reports suggest rioters briefly stormed a police station while 177 vehicles were torched.
    • One government official claims that live rounds were fired at riot police.
    • Two primary schools, a post office, and a shopping centre were damaged and a large car showroom set ablaze.
    • Police vans and cars were stoned as gangs turned on police.
    • Rioting had spread west-ward to the area of Hauts-de-Seine where a police station was bombarded with home-made Molotov cocktails.
    • Jacques Chirac, the President of France, made appeals for calm, and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin held an emergency cabinet meeting. De Villepin issued a statement saying "Let's avoid stigmatising areas", an apparent rebuke to his political rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has called the rioters "scum" (racaille). [37] [38] [39].
    • A woman on crutches in her fifties, Joëlle M., was doused with petrol in Sevran-Beaudotes and set on fire as she exited a bus; "She was rescued by the driver (Mohammed Tadjer) and hospitalized with severe burns" [40] [41]
  • Thursday, November 3 - 8th night of rioting
    • Traffic was halted on the RER B suburban commuter line which links Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport after unions called for a strike.
    • Rioters attacked two trains overnight at the Le Blanc-Mesnil station, forced a conductor from one train and broke windows, the SNCF rail authority said. A passenger was lightly injured by broken glass. [42]
    • For the first time the riots spread outside of Paris, spreading to Dijon with sporadic violence in Bouches-du-Rhone in the south and Rouen in the north-west of France.
    • In Parliament, de Villepin pledged again to restore order as his government has come under criticism for its failure to prevent the violence.
    • Around 100 firemen were called to put out a blaze at a carpet factory while twenty-seven buses were set alight.
    • 500 cars were torched and arson occurred in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Neuilly-sur-Marne, Le Blanc Mesnil, and Yvelines.[43][44][45][46] [47]. Additionally, 7 were burned in Paris [48], and others had their windows broken out near the metro station La Chapelle. Nationally, 593 vehicles were torched Thursday.
  • Friday night, November 4 - 9th night of rioting
    • Violence continued in Val d'Oise, Seine-et-Marne and Seine-Saint-Denis. Arson and attacks on vehicles occurred in Aubervilliers, Sarcelles, Montmagny and Persan.
    • French police claim incidents Thursday night have diminished in intensity compared to the previous night, with only fifty vehicles set on fire [49]. Prefect Jean-François Cordet said in a statement that "contrary to the previous nights, there were fewer direct clashes with the forces of order."
    • "Traore's brother, Siyakah Traore, called for protesters to 'calm down and stop ransacking everything.'" [50].
    • Violence spread to Lille and Toulouse for the first time [51].
  • Saturday (day time), November 5
    • Police reported the discovery of a bomb making factory for producing gasoline bombs inside of a derelict building in Evry, south of Paris, raising questions on the possibility of planning well in advance of the riots. Six minors have been arrested.
    • Several thousand residents of Aulnay-sous-Bois joined a march in protest against the riots, initiated by the commune's mayor, Gérard Gaudron.
    • At noon, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin met with Nicolas Sarkozy and other cabinet members.
    • Yves Bot, public prosecutor of the city of Paris, on Europe 1 radio described the events as organized violence[52], well beyond spontaneously erupting riots. Bot alleged that adolescents in other cities were being incited to commence rioting via the internet, saying that the violence was directed against institutions of the Republic, but he denied it being ethnic in character.
  • Sunday morning, November 6 - 10th night of rioting
    • Cars torched in central Paris for the first time, in the historic third district. There, citizens urged for the French Army to be deployed.
    • The total number of vehicles torched during the night is estimated at 1,295, the highest number so far. 193 people were arrested. An extra 2,300 police were drafted. [59].
    • In broad daylight on Sunday, a Belgian RTBF news crew was physically assaulted in Lille, injuring a cameraman.
    • A Korean female journalist from KBS TV was knocked unconscious with repeated punches and kicks to her face and head in Aubervilliers [60]
    • As of Sunday morning, tenth night, the total number of people arrested since October 27 surpassed 800, and the total number of vehicles set on fire is estimated to be around 3,500. [61] [62]
  • Sunday night, November 6 - 11th night of rioting
    • Rioters fired large-caliber ammunition from pistols and hunting rifles in the southern Parisian suburb of Grigny, injuring 34 policemen, three of them seriously. [63][64] Two of them are reported to have been hit in the head. [65]
    • For the first time, Catholic churches have been attacked with Molotov cocktails in Liévin and Lens in Pas-de-Calais and Sète in Hérault.
    • 1408 vehicles have been torched during the night (982 vehicles were burned outside Paris), and 395 people were arrested. [66] A Polish tourbus parked in Maisons Alfort waiting to return a group of vacationers to Poland was one of the vehicles that were destroyed. [67]
    • In the first incident outside France, five cars were torched in Saint-Gillis, Brussels, Belgium.[68]
    • German police suspects that the torching of five vehicles in Berlin may potentially be connected to the rioting in Paris suburbs. [69]. Similar incidents have been registered in Bremen.
  • Monday morning, November 7 - 11th night of rioting
    • A 61-year-old man, Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, a former Renault employee, died in the hospital because of the injuries sustained after being beaten when he went to check on a garbage can fire in the suburb of Stains. He succumbed to his injuries, becoming the first death caused by the riots.[70] [71] [72]
    • Rioter Moussa Diallo is quoted as saying:
This is just the beginning. It's not going to end until there are two policemen dead. [73]

Assessment of rioting

Assessments of the extent of violence and damage that occured during the riots are under way. Figures may be incomplete or inaccurate.

 
 

date vehicles burned arrests extent of riots sources
1. 28/10 Clichy-sous-Bois
2. 29/10 29 14 Clichy-sous-Bois [74]
3. 30/10 30 19 Clichy-sous-Bois [75]
4. 31/10 Clichy-sous-Bois, Montfermeil
5. 1/11 Seine-Saint-Denis
6. 2/11 40 Seine-Saint-Denis, Seine-et-Marne Val-d’Oise, Hauts-de-Seine
7. 3/11 315 29 Île-de-France, Dijon, Rouen, Bouches-du-Rhône [76]
8. 4/11 596 78 Île-de-France, Dijon, Rouen, Marseille [77] [78]
9. 5/11 897 253 Île-de-France, Rouen, Dijon, Marseille, Évreux, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Hem, Strasbourg, Rennes, Nantes, Nice, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Pau, Lille [79] [80] [81]
10. 6/11 1,295 193 Île-de-France, Nord, Eure, Eure-et-Loir, Haute-Garonne, Loire-Atlantique, Essonne. [82]
11. 7/11 1,408 395 Île-de-France: Colombes, Grigny,, Argenteuil, Trappes. Nord-Pas-de-Calais: Lens, Loos, Lille, Wattignies, Roubaix, Wasquehal ou Marcq-en-Baroeul (Nord), Bruay (Nord). Midi-Pyrénées: Toulouse, Montauban. Rhône-Alpes: Lyon, Saint-Etienne, Vénissieux, Cotea, Grenoble. Sud: Toulon, La Seyne-sur-Mer, Luc-en-Provence, Fréjus, Draguignan, Avignon, Valréas, Carpentras, Maubec, Pertuis, Apt, Bédoin, Marseille. Alsace: Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Colmar. Est: Belfort. Ouest: Saint-Herblain, Montauban. [83] [84]
TOTAL 4,551 948

Areas affected in Île-de-France

 
Areas affected (partial)


Other French areas affected

Riot coordination

French national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that there appeared to be no coordination among gangs in different areas. But he said youths in individual neighborhoods were communicating by cellphone text messages or email -- arranging meetings and warning each other about police operations. According to the Guardian, (November 6 2005), Hamon said, "what we notice is that the bands of youths are, little by little, getting more organized, arranging attacks through cell phone text messages and learning how to make gasoline bombs." The police have found a gasoline bomb-making factory in a derelict building; Justice Ministry official Jean-Marie Huet told The Associated Press that gasoline bombs "are not being improvised by kids in their bathrooms." The apparent role of the Internet in helping to coordinate and cause unrest was also noted. [86]

Political and police response

An official of Action Police CFTC, an "ultra-minority" police trade union [87], described the riots as a "civil war", and called on the French Army to intervene [88], [89]. This caused outrage, notably triggering responses from the UNSA-Police union, which represents the majority of riot police, describing the situation in less dramatic terms [90]. In response to the riots, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy stated that police officers should be armed with non-lethal weapons to combat urban violence [91]. The French government, even prior to these riots, has been equipping law enforcement forces with less-lethal weapons (such as "flash-balls" and Tasers) in order to better deal with petty delinquency and urban unrest, especially in poor suburban communities.

Populist hardliner Nicolas Sarkozy, who has consistently advocated a tough approach to crime, is a major probable contender for the 2007 presidential election. Success or failure on his part in quelling violence in suburban ghettos may thus have far-ranging implications. Any action by Sarkozy is likely to be attacked by the political opposition, as well as by members of his political coalition UMP who also expect to run for the presidency. Le Monde, in a 5 November editorial [92] reminisces about the "catastrophic" elections of 2002 where right-wing candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen managed to enter the second round of voting, showing concern that a similar situation might arise in the upcoming elections as a backlash to the riots.

After the fourth night of riots, Sarkozy declared a zero-tolerance policy towards urban violence and announced that 17 companies of riot police (C.R.S.) and 7 mobile police squadrons (escadrons de gendarmerie mobile) would be stationed in contentious Paris neighborhoods. Sarkozy has said that he believes that some of the violence may be at the instigation of organized gangs. "... All of this doesn't appear to us to be completely spontaneous," he said [93]. Undercover police officers were sent to identify "gang leaders, drug traffickers and big shots." Sarkozy's approach was criticized by left-wing politicians who called for greater public funding for housing, education, and job creation, and refraining from "dangerous demagoguery" [94]. Sarkozy was further criticized after he referred to the rioters as racaille and voyous [95] (translating to "scum" [96], "riff-raff" [97], "thugs" [98] or "hoodlums" [99]).

File:Nicolas Sarkozy UMP.jpg
Nicolas Sarkozy

During his visit to Clichy-sous-Bois, the Interior Minister was to meet with the families of the two youths killed, but when the tear gas grenade was sent into the Clichy mosque, the families pulled out of the meeting. Banou Traoré's brother Siyakah said, "There is no way we're going to see Sarkozy, who is incompetent. What happened in the mosque is really disrespectful." [100] The families finally met Dominique de Villepin on 3 November.

The left-wing newspaper Libération cited the exasperation of suburb youth at the harassment by the police and Interior Minister Sarkozy ("lack of respect") [101]. A schoolkid parent declaration that "Torching a school is unacceptable, but the one who put on the fire is Sarkozy" was all over the French press, including conservative Le Figaro [102].

Azouz Begag, delegate minister for the promotion of equal opportunity, made several declarations about the recent unrest, opposing himself to Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy for the latter's use of "imprecise, warlike semantics", which he says cannot help bring back calm in the affected areas [103].

On November 5, Paris prosecutor Yves Bot told Europe 1 radio that "This is done in a way that gives every appearance of being coordinated." Some Aulnay-sous-Bois residents, as reported by Reuters, suspect that the riots were linked to the drug trade or even coordination by Islamic fundamentalists [104]. Meanwhile, other Aulnay-sous-Bois residents interviewed considered this unjustified. Jeremie Garrigues, 19, doubted this was the case. "If those kids had been organized, they would have done much worse -- they would have used guns and bombs against the town hall and the prefecture," he argued. "Those are all politicians' theories," remarked an Algerian woman named Samia, whose main concern was how frightened her children were by the unrest. "We live here in reality." [105] Jean-Marie Huet, director of criminal affairs and graces, after visiting an artisanal factory of molotov cocktails, said that "this is not really spontaneous trouble anymore"; he further stated "Correlations are made and situations are compared. No one has yet established that there should be any sort of underground organisation" [106].

Muslim leaders of African and Arab communities in France have also issued a fatwa, or religious order, against the riots. "It is strictly forbidden for any Muslim... to take part in any action that strikes blindly at private or public property or that could threaten the lives of others," said the fatwa by the Union of Islamic Organisations of France.

Firefighter response

The Paris Fire Brigade developed an "Urban violences plan", inspired by the experience of the Ulster firefighters (Libération, Oct. 29). The "hot zone" is identified and the fire engines wait outside this zone. When a fire is reported, a minimal team is engaged (two men outside the fire engine) under cover of the police forces; when the fire does not show any risk of extension or of casualty, the firefighters let burn and withdraw. During the extinction, firefighters watch for projectiles. The configuration is taken into account to avoid being trapped in a dead end.

Fire engines and firefighters from other départements were called for reinforcement; they are placed to defend calm areas (i.e. Paris intra muros), whereas the Paris Fire Brigade, which is a military organisation, deal with the hot zones.

Few firefighters were injured by broken glass or molotov cocktail.

Historical context and underlying causes

General situation

The difficulties of the French suburbs have their roots in the reconstruction programmes that took place after the Second world war. During the 1950s, a housing shortage lead to the creation of shantytowns. The country welcomed young workers from the colonies, mostly from North and West Africa, to help in the rebuilding, and this immigration fed the shantytowns.

The housing crisis led to the building of apartment blocks, or flats, which were at first inhabited by the middle class. As the housing situation improved, the middle class moved to better houses and the immigrants moved from the shantytowns to the blocks. The blocks are termed "HLM" – habitation à loyer modéré ("moderated rent flats"). A popular urban planning concept at this time was to separate areas of towns or cities according to several functions: living center (blocks), commercial center and working center, with the centers being connected by buses. This created an isolation of the living centers, with two consequences:

  • there is no activity at night and on Sunday, and buses are scarce to the center of town;
  • when unemployment started to rise in the late 1970s, the children did not see anybody working, as the working center was far away; in the 1990s, a lot of school-age children never saw their parents going to work, and never saw anyone working.

Moreover, some towns refused to build social buildings, and poor people were further concentrated in some towns; a typical example is Paris: when old buildings were destroyed, only high rent buildings were built, and the poor were "pushed" to the North suburbs (mainly Seine-Saint-Denis). The public services offered (number of policemen, post offices, etc.) did not follow the tremendous increase of the population in these areas. A lot of people consider this "ghettoisation".

The immigrants are mainly employed as manual workers in industry and public work, and have little education; they were therefore the first hit by the energy crisis in 1973. The children of these people, born in France, feel ill at ease: their parents always worked hard and were honest, and the only reward seems to be unemployment. Additionally, they are torn between the culture of their parents, with an idealised view of their originating country, and the culture they have always known, French culture. The children of North Africa immigrants call themselves "beur", which is verlan (french slang) for "arabe", although a lot of them are Berber and not Arab.

They also endure less visible racism: they have problems getting a job, or renting a flat, or even getting into a nightclub, just because of their name or the color of their skin, although such discrimination is officially illegal. They frequently complain about abusive identity control by the police ("face features offense", délit de faciès), and that people are mistrustful when they cross them in the street (women hold their bags tight, drivers close their doors).

The underground activity started to rise, with drug usage and dealing, and stolen goods concealing and selling. Streets and building entrances are often controlled by gangs. This situation only rarely leads to real violence (there are only about 400 homicides every year in France, 0.7 for 100,000 inhabitants, and they are mainly domestic violence related), and the inhabitants who suffer it were not heard (they do not vote, have no economical power, are not politicaly organised), so the situation seemed to be tolerated until the 1980s. As the parents are unemployed, the children reject their way of living, especially their honesty, as criminality brings "easy money" whereas honesty leads to poverty. The elder son — grand frère — becomes the ruler of the family and the model for the young ones (recently, the term "grand frère" was recuperated to designate young adults from the suburbs who volunteer to serve as examples and incitatives to integrate into the French society for the youth).

In the 1990s, islamism starts to spread in these areas. This phenomenon is revealed by the 1995 bombings by the Armed Islamic Group, supported by french citizens.

Previous urban violences

The first urban violence started in 1979 in Vaulx-en-Velin in the suburb of Lyon. But the first event which had wide media coverage was the violence in the Minguettes at Vénissieux, also near Lyon; at this time, there was a confusion between social demands and underground crime. After another violent episode in Vénissieux in march 1983, the Front national (french extremist political party) got a good result at the local elections. Recent times have been difficult to summarise with:

  • positive events, such as the "March for equality and against racism" (Marche pour l'égalité et contre le racisme) in 1983 and the womens movement Ni putes ni soumises ("Neither whores nor submissive"), created in 2003 after the murder of Sohane Benziane, 17 years old, burnt by her ex-boyfriend),
  • and explosions of urban violence: mostly arson and stone throwing, mainly occurs when an inhabitant of the area is wounded or killed during a police operation (usually lasting a few days), or on New Year's Day.

Public policy also swings between:

  • management of poverty and social isolation: deployment of social workers, associations acting for school help, prevention of criminality, etc.
  • the reinforcement of police control to restore law and order.

The most striking fact in these urban violences is that it hurts the inhabitants of the poor area themselves, i.e. the neighbours and relatives of the offenders. According to Amar Henni (Libération, Nov. 5), social worker and author, the two main motors of this violence are:

  • the respect and dignity: he thinks this point started the present violence;
  • the reputation: a competition to be the "most violent" area; the media thus seem to play a role in the spreading of violence.

He explains that the violence is oriented toward people of the same social condition because they are not politically educated and organised, and they do not know how to obtain what they want in a legal way.

Recent political context

In 2002, the campaign for the presidential election focused on the problems of criminality in the suburbs, with frequent television reports on this topic. This is one of the reasons why Jean-Marie Le Pen, far-right candidate of the Front national, placed second and entered the second voting round.

Nicolas Sarkozy was chosen as Interior minister with a clear aim: to lead both a strict policy of zero tolerance against underground criminality, and to promote social integration of the rejected. His action is often criticised because of his use and abuse of television, e.g. he organises police operations and calls the journalists to promote his action. This attitude leads to an irritation of the inhabitants of these suburbs, which is not compensated by the other part of his policy, e.g. the relaxing of the "double penalty" (double peine, the fact that a legal foreigner in France who commits an offense can be expelled after his penalty), or his declarations for the positive discrimination and the participation to the local election of foreigners legally living in France.

This irritation was accentuated by the fact that Nicolas Sarkozy was the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, a rich town which illegally refuses to build social buildings: social housing represents less than 2.5% of the housing, and the law imposes 20% (SRU, loi de solidarité et renouvellement urbain, i.e. "solidarity and urban renewing act", 13 December 2000). This was recently pointed out with the problem of tremendous rent increases (sometimes more than 10% a year).

On June 20 2005, a child was killed by a stray bullet during a fusilade (gunfight) between two rival gangs in the "Cité des 4 000" in La Courneuve. Nicolas Sarkozy went there and declared he wanted to "clean out the city with a Kärcher" (nettoyer la cité au Kärcher). On October 25, as he went to Argenteuil, Nicolas Sarkozy used the youth slang word "racaille" ("scums"). Inhabitants of these neiborghoods felt insulted, feeling that all the inhabitants were considered offenders and criminals.

Racial and religious tensions

Many residents of Clichy-sous-Bois and nearby areas are first or second generation immigrants from former French colonies, and half of the suburb's population of 28,000 are under the age of 25. The Seine-Saint-Denis département has the largest foreigners concentration in France (around 30%), and similarly high unemployment rates (30% in La Courneuve, 23% in Clichy-sous-Bois, rising to 50% among the youth). D A large number of them live on the outskirts of Paris, where a so-called "white flight" has occurred, causing drastic changes in the racial, and economic demographics of Parisian neighbourhoods turning many formerly middle class/lower middle class areas into dangerous ghettos.

The BBC reports that French society's perceptions of Islam and of immigrants have alienated some French Muslims and may have been a factor in the causes of the riots; "Islam is seen as the biggest challenge to the country's secular model in the past 100 years," and the "assertiveness of French Islam is seen as a threat not just to the values of the republic, but to its very security," due to "the worldwide rise of Islamic militancy." The BBC also questioned whether such alarm is justified, citing that France's Muslim ghettos are not hotbeds of separatism and that "the suburbs are full of people desperate to integrate into the wider society". [107]

Poverty

According to The Guardian, "the unrest has highlighted tensions between wealthy big cities and their grim ghettoised banlieues, home to immigrants from the Maghreb and West Africa who have never been fully integrated into French society and have become an underclass for whom hopelessness and discrimination are normal." The BBC described "discontent among many French youths of North African origin" and discrimination against immigrants, highlighting that "the pressure group SOS Racisme regularly highlights cases of employers discarding applicants with foreign names." [108]

World reaction

  •   Denmark - In the inspiration of the riots in France, Muslims opened in violent demonstrations in Arhus, Denmark. [109]
  •   Iran - The Iranian minister of foreign affairs has demanded that France treat its minorities with respect and protect their human rights. [110]
  •   Italy - Opposition leader Romano Prodi called on the Italian government to take urgent action, telling reporters: "We have the worst suburbs in Europe. I don't think things are so different from Paris. It's only a matter of time." [111]
  •   Senegal - The Senegalese president, Abdoulaye Wade, at the time on a visit to Paris, reacted to the events by declaring that France must "dissolve the ghettos, and integrate all Africans asking to be integrated." [113]
  •   Turkey - The Turkish prime minister named the French prohibition of headscarves in schools to be one of the reasons for the upsurge of violence in the banlieues. He stated this in an interview with the Turkish newspaper Milliyet. [114] Turkey has similar laws.
  •   United States - State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, asked to comment directly on the riots, said it was a French internal issue, and added, "certainly, as anybody would, we mourn the loss of life in these kinds of situations. But, again, these are issues for the French people and the French government to address." [115].

References

 
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