PARIS, 5 November 2005 — France is struggling to pin down the cause of the Paris riots: Are organized criminal gangs — even Islamic radicals — out to undermine the state, or have successive governments simply failed to give millions of immigrants a chance in life? Rampages that have gripped the poorer immigrant-populated outskirts of Paris since Oct. 27, spreading for the first time Thursday night to other parts of the country, have left many in the country short of an explanation.
The rioters are young, overwhelmingly Muslim men, second-generation immigrants from France’s former Arab and African colonies, who claim they are protesting economic misery, racial discrimination and provocative policing. This argument has been widely echoed in the press, by Muslim and community representatives and by the left-wing opposition, which accuses the center-right government of slashing budgets for social work in these communities. Hard-line new law-and-order policies implemented by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy have also been widely accused of fueling anger in the high-rise, mainly immigrant estates where the trouble has spread.
Sociologist Michel Wieviorka, speaking in Le Parisien newspaper, charged that Sarkozy had “stigmatized entire communities” by arguing that crime-ridden areas should be “cleaned with a power-hose.” The interior minister — while recognizing more must be done to haul the suburbs out of poverty and exclusion — insisted on Thursday the violence was being orchestrated by unknown ringleaders. Police union leader Bruno Beschizza said the riots were “a form of urban terrorism, led by a minority of kingpins, who have a financial interest such as drug trafficking, or an ideological one such as Islamic radicals.” But a senior national police official said there was “no evidence that the rioting is being orchestrated” and that it was “unjustified to speak of an Islamist influence.” Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe has also warned against lumping together “a religion, Islam,” with “a handful of extremists” and “criminal networks.”
Most observers searching for the root causes of the riots accuse successive governments of turning a blind eye as immigrant ghettos, synonymous with unemployment and social deprivation, swelled outside France’s big cities. Today, some 750 areas are classed as “Sensitive Urban Zones” (ZUS), where unemployment hovers at 20 percent — twice the national average — and average incomes are 60 percent of the national average, government statistics show. Among young men between 15 and 25, unemployment reaches 36 percent — and even higher if only young Arab men are counted. Youth violence — with car-burnings a regular feature — has been steadily building in these dilapidated estates, with major outbreaks of rioting around once a year and countless minor incidents which go unreported.
Sociologist Wieviorka said the riots stemmed from years of “broken promises” by the French state, and called into question the country’s entire model for integrating newcomers into French society. The French model, secular and republican, insists that all citizens are equal before the state, but has been accused of leaving cultural minorities without a voice, notably France’s estimated five million Muslims.
