France on Edge as Riot Anniversary Approaches

PARIS, Oct. 25, 2006 — -- On Oct. 27, 2005, in the rough, gritty Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, two French teenagers of African descent died. Their deaths set similar suburbs all over France ablaze in weeks of protest.

More than 10,000 vehicles were torched, 300 buildings destroyed or damaged, and 6,000 people arrested. About 12,000 police were mobilized throughout the unrest. French insurance companies announced this week that they paid out $200 million to victims of last year's attacks.

With the anniversary of those riots approaching, the tension still pervades and French authorities expect a new outbreak of violence in its suburbs.

The feelings of malcontent remain, as the government has so far addressed only a few of the complaints that drove last year's riots.

The poor immigrants (largely of African and Arab descent) who live in these suburbs of high unemployment still feel excluded and discriminated against.

A pessimistic-sounding confidential note from a French intelligence agency was published in Le Figaro, a Paris daily. The note, dated Oct. 11, said, "Most of the conditions which led a year ago to the start of the collective violence ... are still present.".

That note confirms renewed tensions observed by the police, local officials and suburban youth clubs. Recent incidents have made these feelings palpable.

Last weekend, in the Paris suburb of Grigny, a gang of youths, some wearing masks, attacked a bus, forced its passengers off and then set it on fire. There have also been several skirmishes between youths from the suburbs and police officer, some of them planned ambushes.

"France has been on the verge of an explosion in its suburbs for the last 20 years or so. What we don't know is the size of the explosion," said Sébastien Roché, a researcher at the National Council for Scientific Research in Grenoble, France, and author of "The Shiver of the Riot: Urban Violences and the Suburbs."

"There are permanent confrontations between the police and the minorities in the poor neighborhoods," Roché added.

"Today I'm 80 percent certain that we're going to see riots again in the suburbs," said Rachid Allam, 34, who runs the local drugstore in the Chêne Pointu neighborhood of Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots started a year ago.

"I've lived in this neighborhood for five years, and things are getting worse every year," Allam said. "The police come by from time to time, but they remain rather invisible in the neighborhood. The territory is more occupied by the youths than the police. The law must be applied. The police must do its job, but it's not the case," Allam added.

"A lot of things were promised, but nothing has been done, neither for the youths nor to improve the town," said Karim Boulafrah, 30, a butcher shop employee in the Chêne Pointu neighborhood.

"There were promises made, but nothing concrete was done," Roché said. "Neither an inquiry committee nor a committee in charge of controlling public spending were set up.

"No one knows what happened to the money. In France, it's like burying one's head in the sand. There is a denial of reality. It's [as though] last year's riots never existed," he said.

In the late 1990s, the socialist government introduced community policing to difficult neighborhoods. Its goal was to forge ties of confidence between police and local residents, with the hope of decreasing the number of crimes in these areas.

This type of policing was tried out in several French cities, but the conservative opposition party regained power in 2002 and abandoned community policing. Following last year's riots, many town mayors deplored the removal of the community police.

"The only hope for French police is community policing. All the other European countries have adopted this type of police," said Roché. "These countries also have serious problems between the police and minorities, and the police must be adapted to the population of these difficult suburbs, these poor areas in which minorities are present in great numbers."

France's Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who oversees law enforcement and is also the conservative front runner in next year's presidential election, may have to reconsider these issues in his run for the top political job in France.