Conservatives, the far right, the regular right and centrists have had a predictable and very tiring response to the past week of riots, protests and upheaval in France. As always, they blame “immigration” (code for Black people and Muslims), call for ‘respectability’ and insist that this is just not the way to act if you want things to change. Fine. But if you don’t want property to get destroyed and you want quiet, calm streets and you don’t want to be forced to see people’s anger… then you better do something to help.
The answer is very, very obvious: There wouldn’t be riots anywhere if people were treated well.
QUICK RECAP: On 27 June, French police pulled over Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old of Maghrebi Algerian descent, in Nanterre, Paris. One police officer shot Nahel at point-blank range, killing the teenager as he attempted to drive away. It sparked immediate public outcry, with protests and riots across Paris, Marseille, Nantes, Toulouse and more – particularly areas where Black, brown and Arab people live, groups who are heavily overpoliced by French authorities. While the officer in question was charged with voluntary homicide, police arrested over 4000 people during the week-long unrest.
What sparks a riot?
While Nahel’s death was the spark for these protests, they are not really about him; the same way that the 2022 Iran protests become about much more than the death of Mahsa Amini alone. Both are instances of a deep public rage at the state for continuing to oppress a marginalised group. Tallying up the ways in which Black, North African and Middle Eastern people are intentionally held back by the French government and French society is eye-opening.
Let’s start with the banlieues. This is not ‘the French word for outer-city suburb’, but a collection of specific ‘troubled’ areas including the part of Nanterres where Nahel lived and worked. Since the end of World War II, the French government’s infrastructure and social housing policy decisions effectively forced poor immigrants – especially from North Africa – into these suburbs. In les banlieues, a high-proportion of residents are people of colour – first, second, third, even fourth-generation immigrants. The structural isolation has locked in high rates of poverty, crime and unemployment in these areas, alongside under-resourced schools and low rates of education.
The worst off of these neighbourhoods are classified as “quartiers prioritaires” by the French government. In these areas, people are three times more likely to be unemployed and 57% of children live in poverty.
Unsurprisingly, these areas are heavily targeted by police. And, because when you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail, if you look like you’re from les banlieues you are overpoliced no matter where you are. A 2017 study found that Black and Arab men were 20 times more likely to be stopped by police. Twenty.
That’s the structural oppression facing African, Middle Eastern and other people of colour in France. It’s reinforced by social hostilities (you know, racism). Like finding it more difficult to get a job if you have a name that doesn’t look or sound ‘French’, or if you have skin that’s not white, or facial features that are not white, or if your French language doesn’t sound ‘natural’ enough. This, despite the fact that you may well be a French citizen whose family has lived in France for generations, even 100 years. If you’re Indigenous or a person of colour in Australia, you will understand the demands of perfect and total assimilation well.
To get a read on how bad it is, a fundraiser for Nahel’s family raised €400,000 while one started for the officer who killed him received a total of €1.6 million from 85,000 donors.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that France believes itself to be a colourblind nation. The government is so insistent that you are French before anything else, that it refuses to collect racial or ethnicity-of-origin data in its census. The government is simply uninterested in knowing whether there is any connection between its policies and the colour of your skin.
On one hand, you’ll never be viewed as French. On the other, the French state strips you of your ancestral identity. Rather than help you improve your position, you are being locked out of opportunity generation after generation.
All of this is why there is much rage directed at the policy-makers and police who are holding these communities in place.
French courts are handing out insane sentences.
— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) July 5, 2023
One man was given 10 months in prison for allegedly stealing a single can of Red Bull.
How to end it, forever
Civil disobedience is an important protest tactic that’s been used throughout history to achieve real change. It is also the very logical result of oppression – unfairly keep people down and they will get mad.
But the people who condemn these activities don’t view the emotion as logical, only as ‘lashing out’. It makes them mad to see property damage, kids taking a day off for protest, or having their commute to work blocked. It’s the ‘wrong way to go about things’, it’s not ‘asking nicely’.
To which I say… fair. If it makes you angry, upset or annoyed to see protests, riots, rage, unrest and uncivil behaviour there is actually a guaranteed way to put a stop to it all, forever. Help makes their lives better.
The cause of the French riots is not immigrant men – it’s racist policing and policy that keeps people ostracised and poor. The cause of climate blockades on roads and bridges isn’t attention-seeking – it’s government approvals of new fossil fuel projects. The cause of renters getting petty revenge on landlords isn’t entitlement – it’s the growing rate of homelessness.
Policing or punishing people never works because it never solves the real problem.
NSW Premier Chris Minns is the perfect local example of how badly people misread the cause of social discontent. He wants social media platforms to ban users from livestreaming protests, as if that would stop climate protestors chaining themselves to mining equipment or blocking the Harbour Bridge. As left-wing French MP Alexis Corbière said in 2005: “If you think people are going to burn down a police station because they read a tweet… [that] ignores the social reasons behind these conditions.”
That almost 20-year-old statement is as relevant today as it was then. And it was about an eerily similar situation; Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, teenagers from a social housing estate, ran to hide in an electrical substation while being chased by police although they had committed no crime. They died by electrocution in the substation, prompting the worst riots in France in 40 years.
In that time, conditions have not changed for these communities. Nothing got better. Why would anyone be shocked to see riots and rage again? The cycle is doomed to repeat until everyone is able to live comfortable, healthy and safe lives.
If you don’t want riots, you better start helping to make that a reality.
Smart people read more:
France’s Left Has Finally Woken Up to Racist Police Violence
Yes, Social Posting Helps! 3 Times Global Attention Helped Protestors Win
Comments are closed.