France to Erupt?

[Spiffor]

By far, Pekka is the one who makes most sense in this thread. He is no French-lover, but he has understood the situation quite a bit.

Oerdin, Dinodoc and Oerdin haven't understood at all.

[Winston]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Oerdin, Dinodoc and Oerdin haven't understood at all.

How about Oerdin then?

I trust it was a nice birthday party?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Oerdin, Dinodoc and Oerdin haven't understood at all.

I'm the one who said he was a moron for suggesting an unrealistic and stupid solution to the problem.

[Pekka]

Of course I make sense because I talk the truth. The truth loves me and I love it back.

I think what makes most sense is that there is no immidiate solution. If you can figure a way to get rid of ghettoes and do it in a way that it follows our laws and it enjoys enough popularity among the people in general, it would have been done already.

That's why my answer is to try to make sure everyone has an opportunity for education and go forward, if they want to. I don't think we can make people do and act like we want or how we see the society should have them behave. They're free men, there's little control we can do, except by law but that doesn't solve the problem.

I just don't see how this situation should be treated lightly either. If the society can't respond as of now positively, it has to still counter this, it has to protect the citizens, property and enforce the law. There's no two ways about it. But maybe there is a way to separate and weed out those who can be considered to be lost causes and give a chance to those who seem to have gotten caught up in the excitmenet of things but want to try. I don't know.

[Pekka]

There is three ways this will be continuing. These groups will either create a new indetity, even if it's the outcast identity. Or they will start to embrace their old ethnic culture and identity, or they will become French. I see the first two ones being more likely. What can the French do though to assimilate these people? Not much, I don't think realistically there's must to be done. All you can do is do damage control and try to figure out how to deal with these new groups plus try to figure out how ot prevent new generation of same kind of problems from happening in the future. I don't see there's going to be any cures out there.

[Spiffor]

OK, I'm drunk (back from the birthday party I mentioned in post #2), but here's my take on the issue.


First root cause: no belief in the Republican ideal

Current France is deeply a caste society, although the Republic still gloats about its "Republican Ideal", in which everybody is equal. This "Republican Ideal" had some truth to it decades ago, back when the middle class was rapidly expanding, and when most people who went through school could become part of the middle class, regardless of their parents' fortune.

One consequence of this, is that there aren't many dyed-in-the-wool Frenchmen who are lower class people, at least in the cities (isolated regions are something else). To compensate this lack of unskilled and low paid labour, we used to have many immigrants, and we actually still have.

Nowadays, our middle class is stagnating, or even shrinking because of the increasing social unequalities. As a result, there aren't really "free slots" in the middle class for the children of our immigrant workers*. The children of Arabic and Subsaharian African descent don't enjoy a good conjoncture, unlike the children of our Italians and Polish immigrants (who arrived in France pre-WW2).

As a result, plenty of people are fully aware that they'll only land mcjobs and similar, because of their social origin, which goes hand in hand with their skin colour. The Republic (whose main representations in the ghetto are the police and the school) seems very hypocritical at best, and seems neo-slaver at worst.



*The reason why there aren't free slots is because the classes "reproduce", i.e there's middle class people will gve better chances to their children to belong to the middle classes, and upper classes people do the same. Lower-class people can't nearly give the same chances and opportunities to their children.

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Second reason: urbanism, and the existence of an autarcic subculture.

A few weeks ago, in the "Guess that city" thread, Combat Ingrid ROFLed. He posted a pic of Chernobyl, and I believed it was a pic from Paris. There's a reason for that.
Unlike the American ghettoes, the French ghettoes are huge public housing complexes. They've been conceptualised from top to bottom by the same architect, with the same ideals, and without any input from the future inhabitants.
These complexes are made so that they're basically self-sufficient: they generally aren't open to the outside, they are often badly connected to public transit (and car is an expansive hassle not everyone can afford in France), and you can find most basic services there. The only thing is that you need leave the ghetto by day to get to work, but this matter is no factor for a great many people (30 to 40% unemployment there).

As a result, you get autarcic ghettoes, that reject the Republican model, that have no real roots (their parent's culture isn't fit to French ghettoes, duh). What do the young there? They invent their own subculture, that is completely separated from mainstream culture (partly because they reject mainstram culture, partly because mainstream people and ghetto people barely get to meet and know each other).
This subculture takes the worst of both worlds IMO. It takes the intolerance (notably the sexist intolerance) that is often found in the countries from which our immigrants hail. And it takes the lack of moral absolutes, as well as the senseless consumerism, that prevails in our western societies. Such a culture can only be at odds with mainstream culture, and it further reinforces the failure at integrating these young people into the mainstream.
For example, it is fairly hard for a young guy in the ghetto to be good at school (and thus to expect success in mainstream careers) without suffering from intense downward peer pressure.

Many young people in the ghetto don't see any horizont beyond the ghetto. It is where they grew up, it is where they stagnate, it is where they think they'll die.

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3rd argument: the complete loss of legitimacy of the Republic, and the beginnings of an "independantist" struggle.

The French press has talked much about it recently: the hatred between the cops and the inhabitants of the ghettoes has never been as strong. This is partly due to Sarkozy's utter stupidity: removing the only permanent police corps in the ghettoes, i.e those cops that actually know the area and the people there well, to replace them with policemen with a strong turn-over, who care nothing about the area and the people they're supposedly protecting.
But solely blaming Sarkozy would be simplistic and false. To the policemen, every young ghetto-dweller is a probable delinquant, and they are trated as such. Massive ID-checks, strong-armed interventions, useless custodies etc. One can't really blame the policemen for being nervous and sometimes brutal, considering they do operate in France's most dangerous ideas, and they're generally young, inexperienced, threatened, and have only known the ghetto through the media before their affectation.

On the other hand, the ghetto-dwellers are increasingly tired of being seen as guilty until proven innocent. They strongly believe that the police is here to oppress them, and not to protect them. Basically, to ghetto-dwellers (especially the young), meeting a police patrol can only mean trouble.

The government has finally acknowledged this fact, after years of playing ostrich. Villepin has finally said that he "understands the feeling of harassment of some young people", and Sarkozy said that the police "shouldn't look like an occupation army". And they finally show some sense, because that's exactly how they're seen.
As an example, a common ghetto slang-word for the cops is "Schmitt", in reference to the Nazi occupation soldiers, who harassed French people for their IDs and occasionally rounded them arbitrarily, back during WW2 (btw, the acceptation of the word "Schmitt" is also indicative that the ghetto youth has fully accepted part of French culture, which is the collective memory of the occupation)

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4th argument: The feeling of territory

In short, you have autarcic ghettoes with a strong subculture, with fairly strong identities, and an utter distrust of the Republic, especially the police. Whereas gangs exist or not in an individual ghetto, the gangsta idea of a territory can be found in almost all ghettoes. Rival ghettoes and other "foreigners" (those who come from inner Paris or posh suburbs, for example) are not welcome to say the least. And cops aren't either.
One grief I often heard was "the cops patrol with their guns, as if they were on their territory". Such a statement would be outrageous in most of the French territory. But they are logical in those areas where the people consider that the territory is theirs (i.e that it doesn't belong to any entity that comes from another territory), and who think that the cops are an oppressive faction, that patrols "comme en pays conquis" (another old French phrase, that means they do whatever they want because they're the occupiers).

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All of this is a recipe for disaster, and it cannot possibly change with harsher punishment. We tried harsher punishment (Sarkozy started implementing them 4 years ago, and it has become increasingly harsh since then), and we tried a more intense police coverage. This policy was fully unable to prevent the 2005 riots, and even contributed to making them happen.
Nowadays, even the police is thinking that the obsession with punishment has gone too far, and that a more balanced approach is needed. Especially, many policemen are now aware that trust has to be resored between the cops and the ghetto-dwellers, but the gap is so broad that it's very hard to imagine.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm the one who said he was a moron for suggesting an unrealistic and stupid solution to the problem.

You only suggested it was unrealistic because the French would never send the troops.

You don't seem to think sending the troops (provided we have an extremist at the helm, which is pretty likely from next year on), would be a stupid and counter-productive move by itself.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Spiffor
You don't seem to think sending the troops (provided we have an extremist at the helm, which is pretty likely from next year on), would be a stupid and counter-productive move by itself.

Considering the fact such measures inflamed the situation in the 60's to the point that it caused a government to collapse, I fail to see how you could come to that conclusion.

[Spiffor]

There has been little change since last year, but change nonetheless.

On the one hand, the gap between the rich and the poor has worsened. Living conditions are even worse than they used to be for the poor, who have seen their available money (after tax, rent, transportation etc) fall.

On the other hand, on ethnical matters, things might begin to change. More mployers are now interested in diversity: the French are more polarized on racism (whereas there was more of a "soft consensus" before), and there seems to be more anti-racists than there used to be. As a result, more companies try to have ethnical diversity, which they deem good for their image.

In particular, France's main TV-channel TF1, had the news presented by a black man this summer. He is only the second "visible" talking head I've seen in the news, and the first one on a channel of this importance. If there are other people than this guy, I think it can have pretty big results, as it shows that "visible" people can be accepted in the mainstream (and not only through their skill in football or rap).

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Considering the fact such measures inflamed the situation in the 60's to the point that it caused a government to collapse, I fail to see how you could come to that conclusion.

Oh well, I must have misunderstood you then. I'm drunk and exhausted. Carry on

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Spiffor

I note that during the 2005 riots in France, the governmùent eventually got a handle of the situation without using any excessive force, and without calling the army.

At what sort of property lose and at what sort of lose of life amoung the law abiding citizens? And yet here we are one year later and once again a city bus has been burned by arsonists.

Protection of property is everyone's natural right. People have a right to self defense when lawless bandits burn houses, businesses, cars, buses, and generally go on a rampage. When the government completely fails in its most basic function then people are justified to step in and deal with those menaces as need be.

I am very happy I live in America where someone would have shot those men who hyjacked the bus and then burned it. People having a right to self defense.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm the one who said he was a moron for suggesting an unrealistic and stupid solution to the problem.

It worked very well in LA, thank you. I seem to recall the looting in New Orleans was quickly brought under control once the governor ordered looters to be shot.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Call in the army. See a guy burning city buses? Shoot him. See a guy lighting cars on fire? Shoot him. So some **** bag breaking into stores and looting? Shoot him too.

Eventually the **** bags will learn that acting like animals gets you shoot like an animal. Then you arrest everyone else who you can identify as being involed in this crime spree and send them up river for a very, very, very long time.

A weak response to this sort of dilerberate criminal enterprise only encourages more crime. Make the max penalties stiffer and then give everyone max penalties.

now cant you see this taken too far, and in an american context? you think against the government? you get shot like the animal that thinks against the government.

[chequita guevara]

People have a right to self-defense. Buses do not, thug.

[Dinner]

If the poor Arabs are so oppressed and can't find jobs then may I suggest they get off their lazy asses and create their own jobs? Some how dirt poor Latin American and Asian immigrants in the US can still manage to open up restaurants, shops, start construction companies, and a million other different types of businesses. Maybe if these people tried to actually better themselves, take the intiative, and worked hard to be good Frenchmen then they wouldn't be where they are today. Instead they sit there demanding handouts and expecting the state to care for them.

Those type of people I can do with out.