Rioting Across the Century Part 2: France, 2005

In assessing the impact that rioting has, we must avoid two complimentary mistakes: one is that an over interpretation of events leads to romanticising riots as fully-fledged political intervention; secondly one must avoid under-interpreting rioters’ actions. By this I mean that even though protest often takes the active form of destruction and delinquency, the actions of rioters must not be understood as devoid of political meaning.

Despite this, one cannot help but ask oneself what sense is there in burning a furniture store and how much meaning is there in burning cars? In order to help answer these sorts of questions, we can begin to understand the causes of this month’s events by assessing previous riots – most notably the 2005 French civil unrest, which saw 3,000 arrests, 9,000 vehicles burnt and a total of €450m worth of damage within 21 days - a battle between the police and the disaffected north-African youth that tarnished the image of ‘la belle France’.

On the 27^th October 2005, in the suburban district of Clichy-sous-Bois, the accidental death of two teenagers in connection with police intervention triggered unprecedented levels of rioting throughout France. As the violence spread across the country, Prime Minister Dominique Villepin issued a state of emergency, restoring the colonial law of 1955 which granted the government unlimited power to instigate curfews, conduct stop and searches and impose house arrests on suspects.

It has been suggested that the extent of the rioting could have been restricted, were it not for the actions of the interior minister at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy. Two days after the riots began the level of destruction appeared to be slowing down. However, a day later, on the 30^th October, the violence escalated and rapidly spread across the country, after Sarkozy labelled the rioters ‘racaille’ - a derogatory term loosely translated as ‘scum’ - which led to a very public spat between Sarkozy and the minister in charge of equal opportunities, the French Moroccan Azous Begag.

The spat was just one of many incidents which provided evidence of fracture within French society. The underlying issues involved social and economic exclusion, racial discrimination, youth unemployment and the tendency of the French republic to respond to these challenges with paltry levels of investment and heavy-handed policing in the banlieuses – the marginalised suburban housing projects which accommodate the majority of the north-African citizens.

A major problem which has existed in France for decades has been the difficulty of integrating north-African ‘immigrants’ within French society. Back in 1995, the rap group NTM lyricized in one of their tracks,

“The years pass, but all remains the same
More asphalt, less space

Which makes me ask myself
How much longer will all of this last

For years everything should have already exploded, too bad our side has never been united

We've nothing to lose for we've never had anything to begin with

The bourgeoisie should tremble, the gangstas are in town
Not to party, but to burn the place down
But why, why are we waiting to set the fire”

NTM, hailing from the north-eastern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, would have to wait a decade before their fantasies became reality.

Sarkozy, when asked upon the issue of north-African ‘immigrant’ integration amongst wider society, suggested it was a “problem of identity”. However, the so called ‘immigrants’ are not immigrants at all, they are in fact French and are demanding their full French rights. They have no doubt which community they belong to.

The tumult within French society can be understood by this lack of understanding, and the riots highlight the growing disconnect between the political system and marginalised minority groups, which have in turn exacerbated the contradictions in the penalisation of poverty deployed by the French government.

Many politicians last week portrayed the violence in London as ‘mindless’, ‘aimless’, and ‘counter-productive’, a framing very much similar to the condemnation of events expressed by the French government in 2005. Could it be though, that these acts were in fact proto-political?

Gervase touched upon this in his previous post, highlighting that the rioters’ actions can be understood as a subconscious statement, a response to the failures of the political system. Indeed, many in France asked why the rioters were burning schools – institutions that they needed – but to answer this, one must understand that these are the very symbols and instruments of access to the sort of stable life that this youth was being denied. The police are the representations of a discredited state, an authority which has abused its powers. That is what is meant by a proto-political rationality: an effort to discredit the discredited state.

Suggestions that riots were ‘unproductive’ seem accurate on the surface, but paradoxically they led to tangible steps forward for French society. The riots resulted in the immediate infusion of €100m worth of government spending in the most impoverished areas of the country; they put the question of discrimination on the political map and brought about a discussion of less harsh policing in the banlieuses. Sociologist Tyler Stovall argues that the riots led to far greater success in influencing policy change than the youth voting against the government.

At the time that Sarkozy became President in 2007, a series of urban renewal plans and funding programs designed to re-integrate the banlieuses were underway. However since then, funding into these was cut by what Paul Silverstein describes as “general fiscal belt-tightening necessitated by France’s entrance into the European Monetary Union.” He goes on to argue that Sarkozy deployed the money instead to reinforce police presence in light of rising fears of terrorist attacks. The increase in police presence can only exacerbate the disaffiliation between the youth and wider society, condemning the north-African youth as racially and spatially ‘other’.

By extracting the positives from the events in 2005, one can see that it shows the capacity of the French youth to refuse to be marginalised - to not accept dead-end jobs, brutal policing as a daily experience and the lifelong social insecurity that comes with these experiences .

But this also presents the failures of the French political system as a schizophrenic state: liberal at the top, non-interventionist, seemingly unable to provide for the poorest in society, whilst paternalistic at the bottom when it comes to handling the social consequences of these policies.

- Jack O

Wacquant, Loic, 'Return Of The Repressed' http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/wacquant_pdf/RETURNOFREPRESSED-MONU.pdf (interesting case study comparison between riots in France, US and GB))

http://riotsfrance.ssrc.org/ (website/blog dedicated to riots - a number of articles from various authors)

Wallerstein, Immanuel, ‘The French Riots: Rebellion of the Underclass’ http://www2.binghamton.edu/fbc/archive/174en.htm

Schneider, Cathy Lisa, 'Police Power and Race Riots in Paris'