Les troubles civils révèlent les fractures profondes d'une nation.
Well, living in Paris is never boring. It's been a wild few days. And who knows what the weekend will bring. Where I live in Paris is untouched (so far). But people are rightfully scared as the unfolding violence and chaos spreads across Paris and beyond.
Nanterre, the suburb of Paris where the murder victim, 17 year old Nahel lived - and died - has once again become the scene of unrest. Hours after a peaceful march in his honour ended violence broke out. Office buildings were vandalised and a bank was set on fire. As the evening drew on police officers arrived in large numbers, in vans and on bikes.
Around five thousand officers were sent to Paris suburbs after some 170 police were injured and 180 people arrested overnight on Wednesday, when Mr Macron was at an Elton John concert - the optics of which have just reinforced the view that this is a President who is very much out of touch with his own country.
At a crisis cabinet meeting on Thursday, Mr Macron called the violence “unjustifiable” as scores of cars were set ablaze and police were attacked with fireworks and in some cases firearms. Shops were looted and state buildings, police stations and schools set on fire.
In Montreuil, in the north, some young people armed with batons have destroyed a pharmacy, McDonalds, ATM and other shops. Police have responded with tear gas. The entrance to the town hall of Clichy-sous-Bois, in the eastern suburbs of Paris, was set alight by protesters, according to videos shared online.
Buses and trams in Paris were stopped at 9pm in and around Paris and a curfew from 9pm to 6am was imposed in the Parisian suburb of Clamart until Monday as authorities struggled to keep control. In Nanterre’s Avenue Pablo Picasso, dozens of vehicles burned as fireworks were fired at police lines, along with stones and Molotov cocktails.
According to text messages sent between officers and seen by BFM TV, police said they were totally swamped, had run out of rubber bullets and were forced to withdraw from various districts after being personally targeted.
Conservative politicians have been screaming at Macron’s government to call a state of emergency and send in the armed forces. But so far both Macron and his Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne have ruled it for fear of escalating the situation.
A state of emergency was called by then-president Jacques Chirac during the 2005 banlieue riots. That was the first time the measure had been taken in 50 years. Ten years later, the French government declared a state of emergency following the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. The measure lasted two years. Thursday night, various government ministers said a state of emergency was not being considered. Whether this is still their position as the unrest persists and intensifies remains to be seen.
I suspect the Macron government is haunted by the possibility of a repeat of the weeks of sustained violent protest sparked by the death of two young boys of African origin during a police chase in 2005. That incident, in Clichy-sous-Bois outside Paris, triggered weeks of unrest with France declaring a state of national emergency as more than 9,000 vehicles and dozens of public buildings and businesses were set on fire.
The government seems to be caught flat footed. The riots have spread way beyond Paris and some its poorer and more multi-cultural suburbs to other cities such as Lille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lyon, Toulouse, and Marseille. It’s a shit show.
The heart of this civil strife is the age old issue of the role of the police in society. It would be a grave misunderstanding to see the French police and all that ails them through an English or especially an American lens. France is not America. This has nothing to do with race or even systemic racism (whatever the lazy way of thinking that is). The police officers in Paris and other major cities are multi-ethnic and many are married with partners across ethnic lines. To think this is white on black is incredibly dumb.
This isn't even about class. The British Met police are now mostly recruited from university graduate class when before they were blue collar. Unlike the British Met, the police in France is overwhelmingly blue collar and live in the same social locales as they ones they police. It's one reason why they don't take any shit when they stop someone. They can be brusque and yes even borderline brutal. But to wrap this all in a bundle and a bow and call it racism is simplistic bullshit.
As one of my French colleagues - who managed to make it out of the banlieues (poor social housing suburbs of Paris) and managed to get good schooling and make a decent life for herself - put it well: the problem with the police is they are meant to protect citizens but they really serve the state. This is the fracture between state and society.
Some say sending more police in is like pouring gasoline on a fire - but what else can a responsible government do to avert chaos and further civil unrest? They have to be seen to act.
And yet that mistrustful relationship is many have with the police which has prompted the anger. People in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods such as Nanterre say officers aren’t working to protect them - it’s a common refrain one hears. However true it may be it doesn’t absolve the rioters themselves - many of who are just looting for the fun of it or are far left agitators - in these areas who have gone beyond protesting a tragic murder of a young man to openly looting and destroying cars, family owned stores, commercial stores, schools, and businesses.