A
revolt against racism 11th
November, 2005 JOHN
MULLEN, a member of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) and editor
of the journal Socialisme International, reports from -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - HUNDREDS
OF French suburbs and towns have become scenes of open rebellion against
anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism. Thousands of cars have been torched and
warehouses set on fire by youth who are the children of North African and
Middle Eastern immigrants--people who bear the brunt of the racist and
discriminatory policies of the French government. The
rebellion began in Clichy-sous-Bois, a poor north-eastern suburb of Almost
10 percent of the French population is first- and second-generation immigrants
from former French colonies, who live in rundown housing estates that ring
most major French cities. These vertical slums are crowded and poorly maintained,
public transportation is unreliable, and unemployment is two to three times
what it is for the rest of the population--conditions familiar to African
Americans and Latino immigrants in the In
addition to the economic despair that permeates immigrant communities,
the conservative government of President Jacques Chirac is enforcing a
racist law against Muslim girls wearing veils in public schools. The
government’s despised Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, refers to immigrants
as “scum.” Two days after the teens’ deaths northeast of “The
resentment is huge here, and we were not surprised to see an incident like
this spark it off,” said Mokded Hannachi, a government official who has
been acting as a mediator between police and youths. “You cannot constantly
stop people for no reason to check their papers and not have consequences.” The
thousands of young people in revolt are a new generation of the children
of immigrants, who are concluding that there is little future ahead for
them. Over recent years, they have seen rising electoral support for the
fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen, new racist laws against Muslims and, in the
last few weeks, vicious police round-ups under the excuse of clearing out
immigrants living clandestinely. This summer, the deaths of dozens of people
in a series of fires that swept through unsafe housing for poor Africans
in At
the same time, The
government appears as absolutely illegitimate. Prime Minister Dominique
de Villepin is so distant from ordinary people that he has never even been
elected to the national assembly, but was appointed by Chirac. Chirac is
generally known to have been involved in a series of shady business deals,
and only his presidential privilege has kept him out of the courts. Despite
its unpopularity, though, the government has continued its attacks. Taxes
on the rich have been slashed, and new labour laws make firing workers
much easier. In
this climate, high levels of cynicism among poorer young people are to
be expected. This
hopelessness has led to violent reactions--sometimes against the police,
but also often against other young people or ordinary workers. One 61-year-old
man was killed in the rioting. Last year, high school student demonstrations
were attacked by disaffected youth, which eventually made it impossible
to organize further protests. In the current riots, police are sometimes
the target, but ordinary people’s cars and schools are also being destroyed,
and fire-fighters trying to intervene have been stoned. Among
workers, the riots can be interpreted in many ways--people are talking
of little else--and the ability of the left to offer explanations different
from the right wing’s often racist calls for repression is crucial. The
LCR, a revolutionary socialist organization of a few thousand, but with,
for the moment, an influence far beyond its ranks, organized a meeting
of left organizations with the aim of organizing a protest in the poorer
suburbs of Lutte
Ouvrière (Workers’ Struggle), another revolutionary organization,
has denounced Sarkozy’s provocative police presence, and the degradation
of living conditions for the poor, and called for more community policing. The
combination of an absolutely justified revolt against government contempt
and police brutality on the one hand, and cynical, despairing violence
against our own people on the other, makes for a difficult debate on the
left about what to do and what to say. But the radical left is bigger and
more influential than it has been for 20 years, boosted by defeat of the
constitution referendum earlier this year. The political terrain won’t
fall to the right wing alone this time. Leaflets
calling for political organizing appeared in many towns as Socialist
Worker went to press. Regional trade union federations are organizing
to join this kind of initiative. Mass strikes spread through The
rioting could help bring down the French government of Chirac and de Villepin--provided
they go further and find a link to unions and others, with a vision for
changing the conditions that have sparked the upheaval. The
source of the discontent YANN
TERDECHÈNE, a member of the LCR, writes from -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - IN
THE U.S., the word “suburb” generally refers to a mostly white and more
or less well-off area. In One
type of suburb that gathers the poorest population of all is the “cités,”
with their cheap and ugly housing projects, made up of gigantic buildings
that group together hundreds of apartments. They are often called “cages
à lapins” (rabbit cages). Average income in the cités is
about 60 percent of the national average. The
“cités” were built at the end of the 1960s and in the ’70s, when
thousands of immigrants, mostly from northern Africa, came to Native-born
workers who could afford it progressively moved out of the “cités,”
which became more and more filled with immigrants. Nowadays, these neighbourhoods
suffer the worst problems of French society: unemployment, lack of public
services, racism and poverty--and, as a consequence, drugs and violence.
In Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots began, unemployment for young men
between 15 and 25 reaches 36 percent, and is even higher if only young
Arab men are counted. The
first big rioting of immigrants took place in 1983 started in Vénissieux,
a suburb of the southern city of This
type of violence can have self-destructive aspects and is often rejected
by the majority of residents. In a way, burning schools, gymnasiums, post
offices or public transportation is speeding up the government’s agenda
of cutting spending in poor neighbourhoods. But
at the same time, there is no doubt about who is responsible for the situation.
As a parent in Grigny (another suburb of Nicolas
Sarkozy is the minister in charge of the police, the leader of the main
right-wing party, and probably the main candidate of the right in the next
presidential election in 2007. He built his reputation of being tough on
crime by organizing spectacular (and, of course, totally ineffective) police
operations hyped by the media--and by insulting immigrant youth with his
talk of “cleaning the cities.” Everyone is demanding his resignation. The
violence could contribute to friction between different parts of the working
class, especially if there is no political answer from the left wing. But
we also have exciting positive historical examples. In 1983, after the
rioting in Vénissieux, Arab youth from the suburbs initiated a march
on The
left--which gained much credibility last May after the “no” vote against
the European constitution-- should be ready to support a similar mobilization,
and to restore hope with an anti-capitalist agenda.
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