France enjoys break from riots but polygamy suggestions cause uproar
Canadian Press
Friday, November 18, 2005 PARIS (AP) - French streets were relatively peaceful overnight after three weeks of unrest, police said Thursday. But protest has erupted amid suggestions polygamy played a role in the violence. Human rights groups are reacting with outrage to comments by French officials who have said polygamy is one of the reasons youths from underprivileged Muslim households have been rioting. France's League of Human Rights called the comments "sickening and irresponsible," while the anti-racist group MRAP said such remarks would only feed the "racism and exclusion" that incited youths to riot. Over the last three weeks, the rioting spurred by allegations of racism and discrimination spread to nearly 300 towns and cities and involved violent exchanges of stones and tear gas between youths and police. Almost 3,000 youths - many of them French-born children of North and West African immigrants - have been arrested. At the peak 1,408 vehicles were burned in a single night. But police said the number vehicles set ablaze late Wednesday and early Thursday fell to just 98, the lowest tally yet. Vandals have also hurled gasoline bombs at buildings, destroying or damaging hundreds of shops, government offices, schools, mosques and a church. Muslim leaders in France have condemned the attacks against houses of worship and said the violence against mosques shows Muslims were not the only ones behind the attacks. Dalil Boubakeur, director of the Great Mosque of Paris and one of the country's leading Muslim figures, said in a statement Tuesday it is too easy to make Muslims "the scapegoat" of France's riots and he detected a "troubling Islamophobia." The unrest broke out Oct. 27 in a housing project outside Paris after two teenagers were electrocuted while hiding from police in a power substation. It quickly spread through poor minority communities across France. The resulting violence sparked intense debate over France's failure to integrate minorities and forced the government to confront problems of racism and poverty. That debate grew more strident after Labour Minister Gerard Larcher was quoted in Wednesday's Financial Times newspaper saying youths from large polygamous families often have social behavioural problems, stemming from lack of a father figure. At the same time, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was quoted in the current issue of newsweekly L'Express saying polygamy is one of the cultural differences that "makes it more difficult to integrate a French youth of African origin with a French youth of another origin." And Conservative legislator Bernard Accoyer told RTL radio polygamy is "certainly one of the causes" of the problems of integrating Muslim families into French society. The reaction was immediate. One group, the League of Human Rights, said in a statement the comments were provocative and "knowingly took the risk of reinforcing xenophobia and racism." Jean-Pierre Brard, a communist legislator from Seine-Saint-Denis, said he was aware of 150 polygamous families in his town. But to link polygamy to the rioting "is to treat people like imbeciles." Polygamy is illegal in France. But visas were granted freely to family members of immigrants until 1993, after which visas were authorized for only one spouse. The Ministry of Social Affairs estimates on its website there are between 8,000 and 15,000 polygamous families in France. © The Canadian Press 2005

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