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Letter from Paris: The riots—cause and effect Posted 11/12/05 By Eduardo Cue PARIS—Burning automobiles have long been a symbol of civil disobedience and an expression of anger by the underprivileged in France. The carcasses of thousands of cars that littered the landscape last week were testimony to the deep social and economic problems in a country that maintains a fresh memory of the revolutionary slogan "liberty, equality, fraternity."
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The charred automobile skeletons scattered around the housing projects or piled high by municipal workers following two straight weeks of nightly rioting in hundreds of suburban housing projects and some city centers reflected the widespread discrimination against immigrants of Arab and African origin and the failure of three decades of expensive social policies intended to integrate them. "We don't have a choice. We are ready to sacrifice everything because we have nothing," said a young man by the name of Bilal in Aubervilliers, one of the riot-torn Parisian suburbs. "We even burned the car of a friend. He got angry, but he understood." For years now, cars have been burned in the eastern city of Strasbourg near the German border on New Year's Eve for no apparent reason. It has become a rite of passage into a new year. Indeed, some 25,000 cars are burned in France each year, the result of what experts call "social jealousy" created by the prevailing discrimination—particularly in the job market—against those without the right pedigree or diplomas from elite schools. This year alone, an average of 80 cars had been burned each day in France before the riots began. More than 5,000 vehicles have been burned during the current troubles that began October 27, when two youths running from the police were electrocuted in Clichy-sous-Bois northeast of Paris. Their deaths and the serious injuries suffered by a companion sparked the violence, the most serious in France since the legendary 1968 student uprising. Yet despite the intensity of the nightly confrontations with police, only one person has been killed, a man who was beaten to death by a group of rioters. Stunned and surpassed by events, President Jacques Chirac's center-right government dusted off a 1955 law declaring a state of emergency that gave authorities the right to impose a curfew, conduct raids without a warrant, restrict freedom of the press, close bars and theaters, and place under house arrest people deemed dangerous to public order. The government said it would not restrict press freedom or close theaters. The law, last applied in 1985 to calm violence in the South Pacific territory of New Caledonia, was originally approved to control civil unrest emanating from Algeria's drive for independence from France. The announcement that the emergency law was being put into effect drew ironic and dismayed comments from the press. Le Monde, in a rare front-page comment, said that "exhuming a 1955 law sends to the youth of the suburbs a message of astonishing brutality: that after 50 years France intends to treat them exactly as it did their grandparents." For its part, the left-wing daily Liberation mocked the government, calling the application of the law "a brilliant step forward" and Chirac's 10-year "reign" a "tragic flaw." Next Page 1 | 2 | 3
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