The French Autumn Riots of 2005 and the Crisis of Republican Integration
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THE FRENCH AUTUMN RIOTS OF 2005 AND THE CRISIS OF REPUBLICAN INTEGRATION FRANCIS MESTRIES INTRODUCTION children (both second and third generations) into the nation’s social, rench police intelligence has economic, and political fabric. This classified the street riots that problem stems from the predicament swept through the suburbs of of the nation’s main institutions—the French cities during October welfare state, social urbanism, the Fand November of 2005 as the most school system, the justice system, the serious popular rebellion since 1968. police, and the family unit—in a Even though car burnings and clashes context of economic stagnation and with police had been an often unemployment. televised and ludic weekend tradition A number of false and ideological among marginalized youths since reasons have been used to explain 1981—and, particularly, 1990—these these riots. However, these were not events had never taken place racially motivated, as in the case of simultaneously in as many cities or U.S. ghettoes, nor are the French for such a prolonged amount of time. working-class suburbs comparable to Neither had they swept into some the ghettoes. In fact, there was no neighboring countries or targeted racial violence. The rioters were not public buildings, businesses, and street gang members fighting over schools. The sheer scale of the revolt drug territory, as suggested by the highlighted the French integration then Minister of the Interior Nicolas model’s growing inability to Sarkozy. And they were not Muslim incorporate immigrants and the fundamentalists, as the far-right ethnic minorities comprised by their would have it. In fact, the lack of a 2007 SECOND SEMESTER 117 MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO FRANCIS MESTRIES THE FRENCH AUTUMN RIOTS OF 2005 political project or a social utopia was France, or UOIF) declared a fatwa the most striking factor in this against the arsonists, although spontaneous, anarchic revolt against another Muslim religious economic marginalization and social representative opposed it. It was discrimination. around this time that a sixty-five year old white man in Stains, Seine St. Denis, became the first and last THE RIOTS. casualty of the riots. Low-scale disturbances spread to Athens, Suburban youths of African origin Rotterdam, and Brussels. On started rebelling on October 27, 2005. November 12, in an attempt to As in the case of many previous street control the movement, the riots in France and Los Angeles during government decreed a curfew and 1992, the violence was spurred by an declared a state of emergency, banning encounter involving the police. Three nightly social meetings in public young theft suspects were being places and authorizing summary chased by policemen in Clichy-sous- penal sanctions and brazen searches. Bois, a suburb of Seine Saint-Denis in This measure, abetted by a law passed northeast Paris, when they decided to in 1955 to fight Algerian take refuge in a power substation to revolutionaries, was a completely escape abuse. Two of them were disproportionate response electrocuted and died. In response, car to disturbances carried out by burnings and violent clashes between marginalized youths. It was youths and police took place in the denounced by Arab and African area. But it was the use of tear gas on minorities who resented its colonialist a mosque and the comments made by character and many mayors refused to Sarkozy—who claimed he was going implement it. The government also to clean the “scum” off the streets— arrested thousands of rioters, that ignited the Parisian suburbs. By deported some of them for being early November, the revolt had spread foreigners, and threatened to cancel to other French cities and even subsidies for large families whose downtown Paris. Banlieues throughout parents were incapable of controlling the country, from Strasbourg to their children. The riots progressively Rennes, Nice to Lille, burned at night. subsided, but the government decided By November 8, riots were taking to prolong the curfew for three place in some Brussels, Berlin, and months in spite of protests by Bremen neighborhoods (like France, left-wing parties. They eventually Belgium and Germany have a large relented and lifted it in January. number of Maghrebian or Turkish After three weeks of upheaval, minorities). The Union des more than 10,000 vehicles and tens of Organizations Islamiques de France buildings had been burnt: schools, (Union of Islamic Organizations of libraries, gyms, police stations, 118 SECOND SEMESTER 2007 2007 SECOND SEMESTER 119 MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO FRANCIS MESTRIES THE FRENCH AUTUMN RIOTS OF 2005 tribunals, town halls, depots, where the kingdom sends its businesses, workshops, and, in some unwanted population. In the late cases, churches and synagogues. The 1950s, many Algerian families who rioters mostly targeted state offices were fleeing the war began settling in and, to a lesser extent, businesses and these areas, which were built to shopping centers, generally avoiding provide moderately priced social religious buildings. However, many of housing for the working class after the cars they burnt in their partially World War II. They were later joined self-destructive rage belonged to by other Maghrebian immigrants and, immigrants and other people in their as of late, many families from Sub- same condition, all of whom lived in Saharan Africa. The French white and the same neighborhoods. Their tactics Christian population concurrently were those of an urban guerilla, diminished, and now most of the relying on cell phones to coordinate inhabitants of the banlieues are French their various small contingents and citizens and second or third escape the police after throwing generation immigrants of non- Molotov cocktails. European origin (Boils, 2006). The government’s response was These neighborhoods consist of firm: 11,000 policemen were large tower complexes that are usually mobilized and almost 3,000 people fifteen to twenty floors tall, all of were arrested. A third of them were which are identical. There are very underage, a few were foreigners, and few commercial outlets and scarcely very few had criminal records. Six any recreational, cultural or hundred were held for trail. The race transportation facilities; there are no for the presidential nomination gathering centers or attractive plazas. between Sarkozy and former Prime The buildings, some of which are half Minister Dominique De Villepin a century old, are in very bad resulted in two kinds of political condition: there are elevator, discourse: the former emphasized the plumbing, and garbage collection need for tough measures while the problems, as well as lack of second insisted on “understanding maintenance in common areas. and dialogue.” It was Sarkozy who Municipal authorities pay little prevailed (Morice A., 2005). attention to the residences because many poor tenants owe rent and others destroy the property, which THE BANLIEUES they perceive as alien (ibid). These bedroom-cities are far from the urban The French word for suburb is centers and house poor and banlieue, a word derived from bannir, marginalized foreign populations. mettre au ban—that is, exclude or They once comprised 1,530,000 banish. The banlieues have been the homes, or what used to be 6 percent place in the outskirts of the capital of French households: a total of 752 118 SECOND SEMESTER 2007 2007 SECOND SEMESTER 119 MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO FRANCIS MESTRIES THE FRENCH AUTUMN RIOTS OF 2005 dilapidated, highly populated and class. The banlieues, however, are not dangerous urban areas. The the product of an apartheid policy or government started demolishing or a social practice of racial segregation: rehabilitating many of these buildings they include African and European in the 1980s, but progress has been immigrants, their children, and French slow: in 2001, there were 250,000 whites (or “Gauls”). As has been new homes and 40,000 rennovated pointed out, the government provides ones (ibid). There is a deficit of some kind of upkeep and public 1,300,000 homes (320,000 in the Paris services (education, health, subsidized metropolitan area alone) and, in many housing, etc.). Also, unlike what poor neighborhoods, two families happens in U.S. ghettoes, people tend often share the same house while to earn their living legally (salaries, others have no house at all. These social benefits) rather than illegally conditions are exacerbated by the fact (drug trafficking, theft; Rey and that African immigrant families tend Body-Gendrot, 1999). In fact, many to be large (three to ten children) and of these areas have multiethnic fronts the apartments are usually quite small that fight problems such as addiction (an average of 28 square meters or 301 and lack of services, and promote square feet for five people). On top of cultural and sporting activities. There all this, unemployment is rife and is, nevertheless, a tendency toward government aid is not enough. Young social, ethnic, and inter-generational French citizens whose families have antagonism (Bruneau, 2004), both lived in France for two generations within the neighborhoods themselves must rely on precarious and badly and between different banlieues. This remunerated jobs. In Aubervilliers, has been exacerbated by the 12.4 percent of households depend on decreasing amount of “Gauls” and the the R.M.I.1 and 18.3 percent receive growing ethnic diversity. C.M.U.;2 aid packages for large families increased three-fold over the span of three years, and the average THE FAMILY STRUCTURE income of tax exempt households is OF AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS 465 euros. Many have compared these Anthropological studies have neighborhoods with the U.S. ghettoes examined the confrontation, given the perpetual presence of drugs, transformation, and adjustment of street gangs, petty crime, and inter- traditional systems and values neighborhood and class hostilities experienced by Maghrebian or involving the French white middle Sub-Saharan families residing in 1 Revenu minimum d’insertion, or Insertion Minimum Income, is a reduced economic subsidy pro- vided by the French government to the unemployed.