Monday, November 07, 2005
What is happening in Paris?
The troubles in Paris just seem to be going on and on. After eleven straight days the riots themselves have claimed its first fatality. There’s no shortage of schadenfreude in liberal Britain or in some circles in Israel. But what is actually going on over there?
France’s Ambassador to Ireland Frédéric Grasset gave a candid interview on Morning Ireland this morning (sound file). He suggested that there is a great deal of caution in the reporting of causes in France because of a fear of the political consequences arising. So far although the riots have centred on the Arabic suburbs of of Paris, AFP reports that there is no descernable religious element to the rioting itself. Indeed a Fatwa was declared against rioting on Sunday.
So is it to do with economics? Much of the anti government anger seems focused on Nicolas Sarkozy, the second generation French interior ministry. Unusually for a top French politician of any stripe, he did not attend the École nationale d’administration. Unusually too, he is an admirer of Tony Blair and is known to hanker after the freer Anglo Saxon economic model.
The Nation magazine is in no doubt that political complaicency lies at the bottom of the rioting:
Behind the facade of France’s democratic idealism – Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite – frustration among fast-growing ethnic minorities, which make up almost 10 per cent of the total population, over racism, unemployment and police harassment have been brewing for years, if not decades. Impoverished Muslims and North African immigrants and their children have become disillusioned by harsh social and economic realities, particularly structural factors that they feel have trapped them in a never-ending cycle of poverty and destitution.
Such factors include attempts by France to protect its own particular brand of welfare state at the expense of new entrants to the job market, particularly those belonging to ethnic minority groups, who tend to be poorly educated and low-skilled and therefore less employable. Relegating poor minorities to the outer suburbs hardly make fermenting problems go away, as the current violence has shown.
Rioting provides a way for these second-class citizens to protest a system they feel is keeping them down. No country in the world can lay claim to a harmonious race-relations model that has worked in the past, continues to work today and will work in the future without regular adjustments and overhauls. The process to correct the injustices may be long and fraught with obstacles, but the time to start is now. And the most crucial first step is the restoration of law and order.
It’s worth noting this short thought note on how the left and right tend to box all manner of events into their own pre-set grand narrative.
Richard Delevan, in his new column in yesterday’s Sunday Tribune warns against smugness elsewhere, least of all in Ireland. In the wake of the race riots in LA in 1992, he quotes a report in the Chicago Sun Times: “The consensus of French pundits that something on the scale of the Los Angeles could not happen here, mainly because France is a more humane, less racist place with a much stronger committment to social welfare programs”.
He goes on to note Michael McDowell’s recent speech when he suggested that Ireland could not afford to have a second generation immigrant population that grows up institutionally disaffected from the police force, “we have to plan for this, rather than ending up with a largely white, native force policing migrant communities who don’t feel any bond with the police force”.
Mick Fealty @ 05:08 PM
A thoughtful analysis from an American expatriate living in France.
Posted by on Nov 08, 2005 @ 11:10 PM6countyprod, I have to admit I didn’t expect you to respond like that :) I’ll go and meditate for a while before adding any more.
The last number of posts on the thread have indeed been very constructive and informative. I agree, this is where blogs like this really come into their own.
Posted by on Nov 08, 2005 @ 11:28 PMTafkabo, you initially said that 40% of the rioters were Muslim (7/11 1050pm, 8/11 12.33pm). Now you ask me: Where have I argued that the initial riots were not predominantly made up of people who were, at least nominaly, moslem? That’s progress.
That’s an unfair distortion of what I said, which was I’d be surprised if the number of those rioting was 99% moslem.There are no official statistics, but I’d guess 40-60% moslme at most.
Posted by on Nov 08, 2005 @ 11:28 PMJ mcConnell.
Sorry, I ought to clarify that I am not disputing that terrible things happen in riot situations, and that often the weakest and most vulnerable are targetted.
I’m disputing the scale on which it is happening.
Offering me examples does not change my mind on that score, unless you can offer me a couple of thousands examples of women being dragged from cars and stoned.As for the general point that a left wing politician made a strong statement and called for action, I accept this, but still would argue that the greater number of calls for strong action arefrom right wing politicans,and are motivated by more than concern for the situation.
I dont know how long you have been in France, or how well you know the country, but as someone who has known France for more than twenty years, has family there, and spends part of the year there, I think it is a very reasonable line of argument to infer from what is going on in a part of France I know very well, and knowing how the institutions of France really work, to infer just how widespread the disturbances really are.
Well I have lived here full time for a year, but have been coming here for the best part of five years.Most of my opinions are taken from converstaions I have with my friends and family here in the very suburbs where it all started.Not to mention the undeniable fact that I am sitting here right now and I am not feeling the slightest bit worried that the rampaging hordes are about to break down the door.Nor can I hear the sounds of civil disturbance I have heard so often back in Belfast.
You obviously know little or no French history. The relative political stability of the last thirty five years is an aberration in French history since the revolution Find a good book on the last years of the 4’th republic to give yourself a better feel of what normal French politics is like, and what future 5’th republic politics are going to be like. It aint pretty.
Using the same logic I could argue that the relative political stability of Europe since the last great war is just as much an aberration, and therefore, impending doom is just around the corner.But there are good resons for believeing this is not the case,and I humbly suggest that the same reasons are applicable to Frances immediate future.
France is a very brittle country, with very fragile political institutions above the mairie/prefect level. It is ill at ease with itself, and has been for quite some time. France does change badly, very badly, and the French know it.
I don’t think I am in disagreement with you on this one, other than our ideas of “very badly” probably differ in scale.
Posted by on Nov 08, 2005 @ 11:47 PMWith a mind to Godwins law and earlier accusations of racism by myself and others.
It has struck me that we have a rather curious anomaly whereby people are happy to label a group of people Moslem or Islamic troublemakers, or more prone to cause trouble, where they would not use the ethnicity of the persons involved, for fear of being labelled racists.
And yet, were they to apply similar terminology to a riot in Northern Ireland by labelling people protestant or catholic troublemakers, or more prone to cuse trouble, based upon their religious background they would immediately be condemned as sectarian bigots.
There are a couple of issues it might be worth exploring.
Is sectarianism less offensive that racism?, and is sectarianism less offensive when it is anti islamic sectarianism?
Posted by on Nov 09, 2005 @ 12:24 PMTafkabo, this doesn’t quite address your question, but it has an interesting take on what racism is.
http://www.yaf.org/press/club100_columnists/Ibrahim/ibrahim_11_30_05.htm
Posted by on Nov 30, 2005 @ 06:11 PM
