Enraged citizens taking to the streets is one of the recurring themes of French history. But the latest bout of rioting in the suburbs of north-east Paris is a toxic and modern mixture of alienated ethnic minority youth and a heavy-handed response by the security forces. The trouble began in Clichy-sous-Bois when two teenagers being chased by police were accidentally electrocuted. No one else, mercifully, has been killed. But six nights of violence have seen volleys of stones and petrol bombs on several other sink estates where unemployment is high, petty crime rife and the police are seen as the enemy.
Not for the first time, the unrest has highlighted tensions between wealthy 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.
It has also raised troubling questions about the government’s role, and especially of Nicolas Sarkozy, chairperson of the governing centre-right UMP party and the man most likely to challenge Jacques Chirac for the presidency in 2007. Sarkozy’s position as interior minister has put him at the centre of this story, and there are suspicions that he is happy to use it in his battle against the prime minister and rival presidential hopeful, Dominique de Villepin.
Sarkozy is one of few French politicians prepared to tackle the twin issues of immigration and integration. His language is always forthright, but it has been intemperate too. Using the word ”scum” to describe the rioters was incendiary, especially after an earlier controversial comment about ”cleaning up” crime in other urban areas.
Overreaction can have grave consequences, and the minister was right to admit that a police tear-gas grenade mistakenly hit a mosque. It is heartening too to hear of Muslim community elders ordering youths home. France’s mood is not revolutionary but it is ugly. Sarkozy talks of ”zero tolerance” of crime, but in the long term it will take equal opportunities in education, housing and employment to keep the riot police off the meanest streets. — Â