A wounded nation resorts to extreme measures

Nov 9th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

Rioting across France has forced the government to dust off a decades-old law on curfews, but the emergency measures have been widely criticised. The unrest, led by the disaffected children of immigrants, is the biggest challenge to the state's authority since the student riots of the 1960s

WHEN riots erupt in one of the biggest countries of the supposedly stable European Union (EU), it can be embarrassing for the government concerned. When those riots go on night after night for the best part of two weeks, only to continue getting worse, it starts to become truly alarming. On Tuesday November 8th, France suffered its thirteenth straight night of urban unrest, despite the introduction of emergency measures in an effort to halt the violence. What started with a few disaffected youths throwing rocks and burning cars on the outskirts of Paris has turned into a national social and political crisis.

The trouble began on October 27th, when two North African teenagers were electrocuted in the shabby Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, apparently while fleeing the police. There followed a week of night-time riots in areas with large African and Arab communities in and around the capital. At the weekend, the government’s worst fears came true when the “shock wave” reached the rest of the country, in the words of Michel Gaudin, head of the national police. Among the towns and cities hit by unrest were Marseilles, Lens, Saint-Etienne, Toulouse, Metz, Nice, Cannes, Lille and Strasbourg, home of the European Parliament.

The worst violence so far was seen on Sunday and Monday, when a total of around 2,500 vehicles were torched, hundreds of rioters were arrested, and scores of police suffered injuries. Monday also saw the first death as a result of the unrest, that of a 61-year-old man who had been beaten by rioters on Friday.

On Monday evening, Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, announced new measures aimed at curbing the violence, in effect declaring a state of emergency. Local administrations were granted the power to impose curfews, not widely seen in France since the 1950s. Mr de Villepin also said that 1,500 police reserves would be called up, to assist the 8,000 officers already deployed in riot-hit areas. However, he added that it was too early to send in the army, as requested by at least one police organisation. He promised to ease social frustration by accelerating programmes for urban renewal and for helping young people in poor areas. The cabinet approved the new measures on Tuesday. Later that day, Mr de Villepin told parliament: “France is wounded. It cannot recognise itself in its streets.”

Tuesday night saw a drop in the level of violence, with 617 vehicles set ablaze and around 200 arrests, though it was not clear whether this was due to the new measures or to the unrest cooling off as rioters saw that they had made their point. Local officials are taking no chances: on Wednesday, emergency measures were imposed in 38 urban zones, towns and cities, including Parisian suburbs. The centre of the capital has been largely trouble-free.

The unrest has unnerved France's neighbours, with some issuing travel warnings to their citizens. There are also fears that the violence could spread to poor immigrant communities in other EU countries, and this has helped to push down the value of the euro. A number of cars were torched on Monday night in Brussels, the Belgian capital.

The French government has seemed at times to be at a loss over how to react to the violence, which is arguably the most serious challenge to its authority since the student riots that rocked Paris in 1968. In the days after the unrest began, ministers held a series of meetings to discuss “sensitive urban zones”, but these did little to reassure the public or stop the violence.

Meanwhile, President Jacques Chirac was widely criticised for remaining silent. On Sunday, he finally called a meeting of top security officials and addressed the public. “The republic is completely determined to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear,” he said. “The last word must be from the law.” But while Mr Chirac promised arrest and punishment for rioters, he added that “respect for all, justice and equal opportunity” were needed to end the violence.

Jean-Marc Ayrault, leader of the parliamentary group of the opposition Socialist Party, wrote in Le Figaro, a daily, that “the least we can say is that the government’s response has been confused and weak.” Others have recalled wryly that Mr Chirac won the presidency in 1995 after promising to heal France's “social fracture”.

Yet many of those involved in the rioting blame not the president but his protégé-turned-rival, interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, for exacerbating tensions. Mr Sarkozy favours a zero-tolerance approach to urban violence, and in the days before the unrest began he angered many by calling troublemakers in poor districts “dregs”. But he has stood firm, and he remains popular: an opinion poll published in Le Parisien at the weekend gave him a nationwide approval rating of 57%. Nevertheless, the crisis has raised questions about his ambition to succeed Mr Chirac as president. It may yet damage him.

Mr de Villepin, who also has his eye on the presidency, initially took a more diplomatic approach, consulting with the leaders of immigrant communities and promising an “action plan” to address the anger of those in run-down neighbourhoods. But his introduction of curfews has been widely criticised as heavy-handed. By invoking a law passed in 1955 to quell unrest during Algeria’s war of independence from France, some argue, the prime minister is sending a message that the children of immigrants will be treated no better than their parents and grandparents.

France is home to Europe’s biggest Muslim population—some 5m strong—and most of the youths confronting the police are French-born Muslims of Arab or African origin (though the children of Portuguese immigrants and native French are also reported to have taken part). In an effort to stop the violence and show it to be un-Islamic, one of France’s largest Muslim organisations has issued a fatwa, or religious order, forbidding “any action that blindly hits private or public property or could constitute an attack on someone’s life.”

With national unemployment of 10% and a poor Muslim population largely confined to grim suburban housing estates, where joblessness can be two to three times the national average, the ingredients for social explosion have long been brewing. Many feel trapped on the estates, which were built in the 1960s and 1970s to house waves of immigrant workers. The government, they say, has promised equality but failed to deliver. Some blame a labour market that is too rigid to create sufficient jobs. Others point to the alienation caused by the hard-line policing methods espoused by Mr Sarkozy.

Policies on culture and religion may also play a part. France's integration model differs from the multiculturalism promoted in other countries, notably Britain. In France, people can follow whatever way of life they choose in private, within reason, but the state will not sponsor them doing so. One result of this is that there are no programmes to promote ethnic minorities out of their ghettos. The state keeps officialdom and religion firmly apart, and Mr Chirac has banned Muslim headscarves (as well as “conspicuous” crucifixes) in state schools. Many Muslims have come to feel stigmatised since the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, as France, along with other European countries, has cracked down on suspected Islamic extremists. Their sense of self-worth has hardly been boosted by growing French unease over allowing Muslim countries like Turkey into the EU.

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