by whataboutbob
Thu Nov 3rd, 2005 at 03:07:39 PM EST
Bumped by Jerome (to keep the existing thread), with substantial new information. Old post below
Update [2005-11-3 12:26:10 by Colman]: More details on the latest rioting from the BBC via Memeorandum.com.
Update [2005-11-3 15:7:39 by Jerome a Paris]: See below for a lot more information.

Acts of urban violence, 2005 (police data)
clockwise, from the largest (red) area: (left is for France, right for the Seine St Denis département, northeast of Paris (see map below)
- car fires
- public equipment fires
- garbage can fires
- violence against firemen, ambulances or police services
- throwing objects
- illegal reunions in building halls
- degradation to urban "furniture" (bus stops, lighting, etc...)
- fights between gangs
- car "rodeos"

As this article makes clear, the violence visible in the past few days is actually little different to what happens every day in the banlieues, with an average 100 cars burnt per night every day this year.
An other article, published last March by Le Monde (probably behind sub. firewall, I'll email to anyone who asks) about the city of Clichy sous bois where this week's events started shows that the problems have several causes:
- a degraded housing infrasturcture, with no incentives for the owners to invest or at least maintain the buildings in decent conditions;
- a mainly foreign population (often "dropping in" directly from the nearby Roissy airport);
- a lack of integration of the population in the social life of the country, with insufficient public transportation and a lack of local jobs;
- the increasing stigma of coming from identified "ghettos" makes it a vicious circle.
But the cité has not been completely abandoned. Identified as one of the worst cases of the 50s housing, it now benefits from a significant (EUR 300 M) plan to demolish the old housing and rebuild smaller, cosier buildings. The associations are trying to get more money invested in "socialisation" infrasturcture: child care, schools, and local police.
The theme of local police comes up a lot. This was one of the reforms under Jospin in the late 90s, which seemed to be working, but was eliminated by Sarkozy in 2002 as part of his "zero tolerance" policy. relations between kids and the police are marked by mistrust and confrontation, especially if the kids are not white. The recent declarations by Sarkozy, indiscriminately calling the trouble makers "scum" ("racaille" is actually even worse than that in French) and calling again for "zero tolerance" have certainly inflamed things (some kids now talk about continuing until Sarkozy resigns).
Which brings us to the political context, dominated by the rivalry between Sarkozy on one side, and Villepin/Chirac on the other. For the past few days, Chirac and Villepin were happy to let things degenerate as it put Sarkozy in a bad light (he has been pretty univerally criticised for his needlessly provocative taunts), but the continued climate of violence has put the spotlight back on the government - and its divisions. Chirac and Villepin show that they are inefficient, they let ministers criticise one another (Azouz Bezag, who is Minister for integration, and grew up in one of the cités, has been criticising Sarkozy harshly in the past few days) and they provide a more general insight on the cluelessness of the French elites today viz. the banlieues. Worse, when Villepin went to see the right wing group in Parliament, he saw that a majority of them seem to lean towards Sarkozy's brand of toughness.
As far as I can tell, the main issues are:
- first of all, the exclusion from the work market. The young and the immigrants (and especially their children) have borne a disproportionate share of the unemployment, which itself has been France's chosen way to deal with globalisation, by protecting the integrated middle class and making it hard to join them. They are left with the unstable, low paying jobs or nothing, and they are not helped by discrimination, which certainly exists against them (for jobs, to get housing, etc...);
- second, the slow degradation of the housing stock. Insufficient investment, a vicious cycle of degradation and escape by those that could have made some of these places shameful for a country like France;
- the concentration of poor and foreign populations makes it impossible for the education system to give their kids a real chance to get out of this spiral, even with the extra help allocated to most of these schools - the problems simply pile on, good teachers are reluctant to work there, and the kids cannot escape.
Communautarism, and religion, have thrived in these places, as a way to organise life, and to provide simple solutions to these intractable problems, but it is hard to say that it is the cause of the problems. The "big brothers play a useful role to defuse tensions and calm down the more excitable youngsters, and are seen as allies by local authorities, for the most part. Religion thrives on poverty, but is not the root cause.
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original post by whataboutbob
Having only heard a little about this, and nothing here yet...thought it important to post this: Chirac seeks to calm Paris riots
French President Jacques Chirac warned of a "dangerous situation" and called for calm after six nights of riots in suburbs in the north-east of Paris.(...)
Unrest flared in Clichy after two teenage boys were electrocuted on Thursday at an electricity sub-station. Local people insist they were fleeing from police and scrambled in to hide. Police say they were not chasing the boys. An official investigation is under way. Clichy saw five successive nights of confrontation between police and young people from the mainly north African Muslim communities in the north-eastern suburb. Unemployment and social problems are rife in many of France's poorer suburban areas.
The more disquieting thing to me is, IF I understand it correctly, that it seems like Sarkozy is trying to use this whole unrest for political purposes (ie., to look tough and play on racial fears), when the approach should be to, as Chirac put it: ""Apply the law in a spirit of dialogue and respect". Do I have this right, or am I off here?
Update [2005-11-3 12:26:10 by Colman]: More details on the latest rioting from the BBC via Memeorandum.com.