A french perspective of the unrest.

[2b]

Perspective 15 November 2005 - Rachel Bloul

[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/perspective...es/s1506927.htm]

I have carefully followed the various accounts of the recent riots in France as well as talked to friends & family there. What has been fascinating is the way in which interpretations wildly diverged while reflecting the preoccupations of the writers. The US media were sharply divided between those who saw in these riots a French version of their own race riots and those who used them to reinforce their position (whatever that was) on the war against terrorism, and the way to deal with Muslim populations in the West. In the UK, the press was particularly interested in judging the failure of the ‘assimilationist’ French policies & comparing them with their own multicultural approach. The Australian press generally gave little space to the whole business, being pre-occupied with the new security measures proposed by the Howard government. It did mention the superiority of the Australian multicultural approach and various French failures re unemployment and racism. However, may I mention that during the 2 weeks of violence –on a scale that Australia has never seen- the French police never did shoot, much less shoot to kill, the insurgents?

But these were not exactly race riots a la USA. Only young men, very young men, most of them under 20 yrs old, burned & destroyed public buildings, schools, buses, shops & some 6,000 plus cars without ever looting 1 loaf of bread. These were not community clashes with demands for the recognition of a specific collective identity a la multiculturalism. The youth’s standard claim was: “We are French too! Why are we not treated as French?” In other words they wanted equality, liberty (from constant, humiliating police controls) and solidarity.(in the form of jobs) How very French of them, indeed!

Certainly, most rioters were the children of post-colonial immigration. Marginalized, angry, irresponsible, violent, but French, youth, unable to trust the empty promises sent their way at elections time by a political class all too used to forget them when business is as usual.

They are also children living in depressing circumstances, in run-down, oppressive council housing in what French administrators call the ‘banlieues enclavees’, a fancy appellation to denote high density building, hastily -& badly- constructed outside of the reach of easy public transport, and often with very little infrastructure. These children can see even more depressing futures looming, especially since the Chirac government suppressed funding to many NGOs & other communities initiatives. They reacted as frustrated and angry children in blind, mostly self-destructive, violence. They did not riot in the ‘beaux quartiers’, they burned their neighbors’ cars, their cousins’ schools, their own sporting clubs, the slow, too infrequent buses their mothers take and so on. Watching French TV, one could see the anguished faces of their parents and other adults (of all ethnicities Blanc Black Beur [White, Black, Arab] as French say), surveying burned remains, and organizing fairly early onward citizens’ nightly watches, supporting each other in common effort to limit the escalating costs of juvenile rampage. These parents, while they often understood, did not support their own children’s violence..

Finally these were male children, a fact worth stressing. Certainly the riots were a response –more than 20 years in the coming to unemployment, poverty, discrimination, police harassment and so on. These circumstances are infuriating enough in a consumer society where TV ads ceaselessly invite you to buy and publicly flaunt monetary success, the only success that it seemingly recognizes. What needs to be said is that these infuriating circumstances victimize male ethnic youths even more than their sisters. Certainly joblessness is high in the suburbs. Joblessness however is also often a specifically ethnic male youth joblessness. Young ethnic males also make up a disproportionate part of the prison population.

And so, when I viewed banlieues youth taunting riot police in almost ritualized fashion, dancing up close, screaming, throwing stones and running away or standing in small groups watching hopeless efforts to extinguished fires, no I did not think 1st of Islam, or even multiculturalism. I thought of the Parisian working-class revolts of 1848 and of “The Miserables”.

Guests on this program:

Rachel Bloul

School of Social Sciences

ANU

Producer: Sue Clark

[apothecary]

Ugh. I (already regretting it) decided to turn the TV on to play some nintendo a few nights ago.

Before I could flick to "AV" I saw the 60 minutes ad for this week.

"Paris Riots: Why we need to get rid of Muslim extremists".

Thank fuck shows like the one 2b posted are on, I hope at least some people are watching it.

[Torsten]

While I didn't connect the trouble to islam, I still had the impression this was more widespread than ONLY late teen youths. It's good to get another perspective. Thanks for posting this.