Response to the 2005 civil unrest in France

The 2005 French riots led to a domestic and international response.

Domestic

Political

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has consistently advocated a tough approach to crime and restoring law and order, was a major probable contender for the 2007 presidential election. Success or failure on his part in quelling violence in suburban ghettos may thus have had far-ranging implications. Any action by Sarkozy was likely to be attacked by the political opposition, as well as by members of his Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) political coalition who also expect to run for the presidency. ''Le Monde'', in a 5 November editorial
reminisced about the "catastrophic" elections of 2002 where right-wing candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen managed to enter the second round of voting, showing concern that a similar situation might arise in the upcoming elections as a backlash to the riots.

After the fourth night of riots, Sarkozy declared a zero tolerance policy towards urban violence and announced that 17 companies of riot police ( C.R.S.) and 7 mobile police squadrons (''escadrons de gendarmerie mobile'') would be stationed in contentious Paris neighborhoods. Sarkozy has said that he believes that some of the violence may be at the instigation of organized gangs. "... All of this doesn't appear to us to be completely spontaneous", he said. Undercover police officers were sent to identify "gang leaders, drug traffickers and big shots." Sarkozy's approach was criticized by left-wing politicians who called for greater public funding for housing, education, and job creation, and refraining from "dangerous demagoguery". Sarkozy was further criticized after he referred to the rioters as ''racaille'' and ''voyous'' (translating to "scum", "riff-raff", "thugs" or "hoodlums" ).
During his visit to Clichy-sous-Bois, the Interior Minister was to meet with the families of the two youths killed, but when a tear gas grenade was thrown into the Clichy mosque, the families pulled out of the meeting. Bouna Traoré's brother Siyakah said, "There is no way we're going to see Sarkozy, who is incompetent. What happened in the mosque is really disrespectful."
The families finally met Prime minister Dominique de Villepin on 3 November.

The left-wing newspaper ''Libération'' cited the exasperation of suburb youth at the harassment by the police and Interior Minister Sarkozy ("lack of respect"). The declaration of a pupil's parent that "Torching a school is unacceptable, but the one who put on the fire is Sarkozy" was reported throughout the French press, including in the conservative newspaper ''Le Figaro''.

Azouz Begag, delegate minister for the promotion of equal opportunity, made several declarations about the recent unrest, opposing himself to Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy for the latter's use of "imprecise, warlike semantics", which he says cannot help bring back calm in the affected areas.

On November 5, Paris (right-wing) prosecutor Yves Bot told Europe 1 radio that "This is done in a way that gives every appearance of being coordinated."
Some Aulnay-sous-Bois residents, as reported by Reuters, suspect that the riots were linked to the drug trade or even coordination by Islamic fundamentalists. Meanwhile, other Aulnay-sous-Bois residents interviewed considered this unjustified. Jérémie Garrigues, 19, doubted this was the case. "If those kids had been organized, they would have done much worse -- they would have used guns and bombs against the town hall and the prefecture", he argued.
"Those are all politicians' theories", remarked an Algerian woman named Samia, whose main concern was how frightened her children were by the unrest. "We live here in reality.
International News Article , Reuters.com
Jean-Marie Huet, director of criminal affairs and graces, after visiting an artisanal factory of molotov cocktails, said that "this is not really spontaneous trouble anymore"; he further stated "Correlations are made and situations are compared. No one has yet established that there should be any sort of underground organisation".

Muslim leaders of African and Arab communities in France have also issued a fatwa, or religious order, against the riots, without many effects. "It is strictly forbidden for any Muslim... to take part in any action that strikes blindly at private or public property or that could threaten the lives of others", said the fatwa by the controversial Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UIOF), favored by Nicolas Sarkozy.

The BBC reports that French society's negative perceptions of Islam and of immigrants have alienated some French Muslims and may have been a factor in the causes of the riots; "Islam is seen as the biggest challenge to the country's secular model in the past 100 years". The BBC questioned whether such alarm is justified, citing that France's Muslim ghettos are not hotbeds of separatism and that "the suburbs are full of people desperate to integrate into the wider society."

Upon his nomination as interior minister, populist hardliner Nicolas Sarkozy promised to lead both a strict policy of zero tolerance against underground crime, promote law and order, and to promote social integration of the rejected. His actions are often criticised because of his use of television and the media. This, along with the relaxing of rules allowing the deportation of foreign offenders, and his declarations of support for positive discrimination and the participation of legal immigrants in local elections, has angered some suburban residents. However, Nicolas Sarkozy was the one to propose to expel all foreigners involved in the riots, which amounted to reinstate the "double penalty", a decision which has been widely criticized, for example by NGO SOS Racisme.

On Wednesday, October 19, Sarkozy announced a crackdown on urban violence and black marketeers, ordering specially trained police to tackle 25 neighbourhoods across the country. Sarkozy went there and declared he wanted to "clean out the city with a Kärcher" (''nettoyer la cité au Kärcher''). On October 25, as he went to Argenteuil, Nicolas Sarkozy used the word "''racaille''" ("trash"). Certain people say that inhabitants of these neighbourhoods felt insulted, feeling that all the inhabitants were considered offenders and criminals. Stones and bottles were tossed at him.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, a hardliner right-wing politician and a longtime critic of immigration from poorer countries, declared that the events vindicated what he had long said. He regretted the caution of the government in not sending law enforcement forces straight against the rioters. Another hardliner right-winger, Philippe de Villiers, made similar criticism.

UMP politician Bernard Accoyer

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases