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Black and Arab youth respond to neighborhood conditions.
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A Letter From France
Inside Paris' Suburban Ghettos
By FRANCIS POWELL
SAINT-DENIS, France – It wasn’t long into my “discrete” photo and note-taking expedition before one of the youth loitering nearby approached in suspicion. “People are always taking photographs around here,” he said. “They should stick to photographing the districts of Paris.” I’d been warned that Saint-Denis residents are generally suspicious of the media. But after this encounter I was sure of it.
The towering Les Francs-Moisins housing projects in this Paris suburb aren’t exactly picturesque. The once-modern housing complexes now feature rows of buildings with decaying block walls, graffiti-filled stairwells, over-flowing trash bins, rodent infestations and pools of fetid water. Mail deliverers wear helmets here and police are hesitant to patrol the neighborhoods, fearing gang attacks. The conditions are a far cry from even the worst living circumstances in Paris, its neighbor to the south west.
In 2005, Saint-Denis was the epicenter of violent riots in which young men torched cars, burned local facilities and fired shots at police over the accidental electrocution of two teenagers. The community suspected the teenagers had been chased to a power substation by police. Many of the rioters were born here to immigrants from France’s former North African colonies, and are French citizens.
The Saint-Denis riot was one of several occurring in Paris’ suburban ghettos, or “les cites,” during the three-week violent episode. The riots started as an angry response to years of overzealous police tactics against ghetto youth, but quickly became a destructive protest against poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, poor education and substandard housing. In the end, a reported 10,000 cars were burned and 300 buildings were firebombed and more than 200 police were injured.
“Young people experience a lot of problems with the police,” says Fouad, from Paris, who did not want to give a surname. “It’s always the same police who control them and they are bored of being controlled in their neighborhoods and being taken to police cars. Things are turning to vinegar (a French expression to say things are turning bad).”
Now, as France welcomes a new president, important questions remain about how to best integrate into French society the hundreds of thousands of French-born descendents of Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian immigrants in Paris’ crumbling suburbs, who say they lack job opportunities, adequate housing and equal treatment by police. Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s new president, is also confronted with the task of easing the longstanding mistrust between traditional French citizens and Muslim immigrants, and with overcoming his own rocky history with France’s Arab and black youth.
The France riots captured global attention and became an embarrassing moment for the French government. To prevent any resurgence in the violence, then-French President Jacques Chirac vowed to create opportunities for young people, announcing plans for additional job training for 50,000 youths by this year.
Currently, France has one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe: 8.7%. In the suburban ghettos, the unemployment rate is estimated to be as high as 40%. Community residents also say racism in France, where an ethnic name or an address to a les cites apartment sends your resume to the trash, is partly to blame for the large job disparity.
“If the gap between rich and poor increases there will be riots in the suburbs again,” says Valerie Thomas, a resident of Le Perreux-sur-Marne, an eastern suburb of Paris. “Sarkozy must do everything he has promised for the poor people. Social measures are also important for a better ambiance and for the mood of the people.”
Thomas says the youth also contribute to the ridged conditions in the neighborhoods when rioting. “The motivation of burning cars is that they are fed up with their living conditions, but it’s stupid because they burn cars of their neighborhoods, which increases their poverty.” NEXT
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