Riots in Paris
November 8th, 2005 | Have you heard about the riots in Paris and the rest of France? If not, get yourself caught up with this Wikipedia article.
Direland says that “far from losing steam, the rebellion is growing and spreading to cities in the south previously untouched. Sunday night in France saw 1408 vehicles burned, some 250 more than the previous night, while 34 policemen were injured by shotgun fire and stones when they were attacked by 200 rioters in Grigny, a suburb south of Paris. In the southern city of Toulouse, police fired tear gas grenades to push back club-wielding rioters. Violent attacks were also reported in Orleans, Rennes and Nantes.”
That was an update from Monday. But why all the rioting? Direland also has a very good post called Why is France Burning? The Rebellion of a Lost Generation.
Aside from all of the social, political, economic, religious and other themes involved, this issue brings up two things for me.
First, the idea of short attention span compassion, which I had been thinking about for a while and Eternal Revolution put into words. With this new crisis and the subsequent media frenzy which it has inevitably spawned, are we forgetting about the millions of people still affected by Katrina and Rita, among others?
Second, a dear friend of mine is studying abroad in Paris this semester. Megan, are you doing alright? How is this affecting you? It looks like they just mandated a curfew. You are in my prayers.
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The riots are a very interesting subject. Although, I am not in the area where the riots are happening…Parisians talk about the riots all the time. Basically, the issue is that the ghettos of Paris are found in the suburbs (whereas in the US the ghettos are usually in the inner city). The racially focused ghettos are getting pushed out of Paris and into the suburbs.
Recently, an important French Minister made a very nasty remark about these “groups” in the suburbs…This fueled with the terrible death of two teenagers being chased by police in the suburbs has caused a massive snowball affect in many suburbs all over France…and even all over Europe.
One huge difference between American thinking and European thinking is that Americans tend to talk more about racial differences. Issues like racial inequalities, college entrance issues with race, diversity in the schools/workplaces are commonly discussed. Now, there are pros and cons to this.
Well, in France NOONE talks about race. It is like this huge elephant in the room that noone wants to point out. Well, there are exterior pros to this…France appears to be more accepting, not making issue of the race factor. Well, the second a race factor is brought up (like when the Minister made his comment) all h*ll breaks lose. The French racial minorities have all this burning anger inside of them…and they need a venue to vent this.
In the US, it seems that we over-analyse and over-debate the race issue…maybe a good open communication is a positive thing.
Well, sorry Jake…this is a really ridiculously long message!
I’m so glad you posted something about the riots. You are so dang darn intelligent and worldly! : )
Hi Jake and Megan,
This “important French minister” has deliberately provoked reactions from French youths of North African descent. Name-calling is about the only thing he can do. his name is sarkozy and he’ll run for the presidency in 2007. Not really a leftist if you see what i mean…
We French people have not been able to accept our responsibility towards those long-oppressed communities from whom we have stolen so much (and keep doing so. Obviously, the Algerian people do not benefit from the thriving oil and gas business. And let us not talk about Rwanda or the Ivory coast… )
Well anyway, the violence is not nationwide. Far from being as tough as the 1992 riots in the U.S. (as for now at least…)
I hope Megan has a great time in France. I’m in Reims (Rheims for you), the champagne region and i try to teach English to my high-school pupils.
Bye all. Babeth