Posté le: Mar 08 Nov 2005 00:38 Sujet du message: Le monde entier découvre le mensonge français.
Revue de presse internationale
Avec AFP.)
[07 novembre 2005]
«Paris brûle» et la France vit sa plus grave crise depuis mai 68, conséquence directe des ratés de sa politique d'intégration, estimait aujourd'hui la presse internationale, s'inquiétant d'une possible extension en Europe de la «révolte» des banlieues françaises.
De la Pologne à l'Afrique du Sud, la Chine et les Etats-Unis, la presse accorde une large place, souvent en Une, aux émeutes qui secouent la France depuis plus de dix jours.
«Paris brûle», écrit le quotidien italien La Stampa. «Ce sont des gangs criminels comme dans le ghetto de Los Angeles en 1992, c'est le black out anarchique, une Nouvelle-Orléans sur Seine», renchérit le Corriere della Sera.
Les groupes islamistes «n'y sont pour rien et peu de casseurs en appellent à l'islam pour justifier leurs attaques», assure le Wall Street Journal, qui estime toutefois que des groupes extrémistes pourraient vouloir récupérer le mouvement.
Le quotidien allemand Tagesspiegel (centre-gauche) paraît très isolé lorsqu'il souligne qu'«il faut garder son calme: Paris n'est pas Bagdad».
Plusieurs journaux comparent la situation à la révolution étudiante de mai 1968. Il s'agit des «bouleversements les plus graves depuis mai 1968. Leurs effets peuvent être très graves et toucher toute l'Europe occidentale», juge le quotidien polonais Rzeczpospolita (droite).
L'insurrection risque de «se propager au reste de l'Europe», s'inquiète le journal portugais Correio da Manha, invitant «à réfléchir à l'exemple français». Le quotidien sud-africain The Star compare la situation en France et en Afrique du Sud et invite Johannesbourg à en tirer des leçons.
«Les autres pays craignent un phénomène de domino», constate le quotidien grec Elefthérotypia (centre-gauche). Car «la France est traditionnellement le point de référence, le baromètre de ce qui se passe ensuite dans les sociétés voisines», selon la radio espagnole Cadena Ser, la plus écoutée du pays.
Pour L'Echo, quotidien économique belge, les émeutes en France traduisent «le désarroi par rapport à une situation économique difficile et le rejet d'une Europe de moins en moins proche des citoyens».
La presse autrichienne conclut à l'échec du «modèle français» d'intégration des immigrés.
Dans cette France qui prône depuis les années 1960 «assimilation puis intégration», l'égalité des chances dans les banlieues est «une chimère pour la majorité des enfants», «taxés d'office du triple délit de faciès, d'adresse et de nom», estime le journal marocain des milieux d'affaires, l'Economiste.
«La France s'est fait piéger par ses contradictions», juge La Tribune en Algérie.
Le quotidien tchèque Pravo (gauche) se demande ce que peut faire le gouvernement français, «à part envoyer l'armée contre les jeunes émeutiers».
Face à la crise, certains journaux comme la Libre Belgique s'étonnent de «l'impuissance» du gouvernement.
Pour le quotidien grec Elefthéros Typos (centre-droit), le ministre de l'Intérieur Nicolas Sarkozy est «dans l'oeil du cyclone» mais d'autres journaux s'en prennent au président Jacques Chirac.
Le quotidien allemand Frankfurter Rundschau (gauche) le compare à Louis XVI: «Qu'est-ce qu'attend le chef d'Etat? Commet-il une faute historique comme jadis Louis XVI qui, commentant les nouvelles inquiétantes émanant du peuple, posa d'une manière sceptique à ses conseillers la question: 'Alors il s'agit d'une révolte?' pour qu'on lui réponde: 'Non votre Altesse, d'une révolution !».
Deux quotidiens espagnols estiment toutefois que le président français a pris «le commandement de la crise» (ABC, droite) en fixant «la restauration de l'ordre» comme priorité (El Pais, centre-gauche).
ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
La France au pilori
«Les journaux américains comparent Paris à Bagdad (…) ou à la Bande de Gaza»
L'éditorial par Yves Thréard
[07 novembre 2005]
Paris brûle-t-il ? Les médias étrangers se déchaînent, les services consulaires sont sur les dents. La France serait un pays en guerre. Les violences urbaines qui se propagent sur son territoire inspirent, partout, les commentaires les plus graves et les réactions les plus inquiètes. Moscou recommande à ses ressortissants d'éviter la région parisienne ; le gouvernement finlandais déconseille les excursions nocturnes en banlieue ; l'ambassade du Portugal offre sa protection en cas de danger. Les journaux américains n'hésitent pas à comparer Paris à Bagdad, la Seine-Saint-Denis à la bande de Gaza, et à qualifier la crise de «Katrina des désastres sociaux». Grand seigneur, Muammar Kadhafi a même proposé son aide à Jacques Chirac.
De deux choses l'une. Ou l'intérêt porté à la France est sincère, et il mérite alors toute notre reconnaissance. Ou bien l'occasion est trop belle pour narguer la patrie revendiquée des droits de l'homme et des Lumières, toujours prompte, il est vrai, à donner des leçons au reste de l'humanité. S'il y a sans doute un peu des deux, il est raisonnable de penser que la seconde attitude est dominante.
La France paye aujourd'hui son arrogance. Aux yeux du monde, son fameux modèle d'intégration est en train de partir à vau-l'eau. Cette crise traduit «son incapacité à intégrer ses immigrants», écrit le New York Times. La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid. Les Américains n'oublieront jamais les propos peu flatteurs tenus sur leur pays et leur société au moment de la guerre en Irak et du passage du cyclone sur la Louisiane.
Leur analyse n'est pourtant pas dénuée de perspicacité. Elle souligne l'échec de quarante ans de politique. Si la France n'est pas en guerre, elle est plongée dans le bourbier de ses incohérences, de ses contradictions. Trop souvent, la démagogie l'a emporté sur la raison pour régler le problème dit des banlieues. De plans d'urgence en programmes de rénovation, les moyens ont rarement suivi les intentions. Surtout, il est illusoire de penser que quelques mesures techniques donneront fierté et espoir à nombre de Français issus de l'immigration que trop de discours lénifiants ont davantage présentés en victimes qu'en citoyens responsables.
Il n'est pas de modèle d'intégration exemplaire. Mais la France a abandonné le sien en cédant à la facilité et à quelques préjugés communautaristes. Elle ne cesse de faire des «jeunes» des cités des Français à part. Ainsi le premier ministre a-t-il reçu, samedi, Dalil Boubaker comme si le recteur de la Mosquée de Paris était le chef d'un syndicat des banlieues. L'islam est-il au coeur des violences actuelles ? Pas qu'on sache. La solution semble être plutôt dans la réaffirmation des droits et devoirs de chacun, et communs à tous. _________________ "tout nèg a nèg
ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
Emeutes dans les banlieues parisiennes – Depuis une dizaine de jours, Nicolas Sarkozy, le ministre français de l’Intérieur est rattrapé par la rue. Si certains collègues étrangers de celui qui avait pourtant promis «éradiquer la vermine», l’étonnement passé, semblent amusés par ses déboires face à des évènements jugés prévisibles, à Abidjan devait sonner l’alerte maximale. Et pour cause.
«Sarkozy der Senkrechtstarter», le politicien à l’ascension vertigineuse. Tel le désignait la presse allemande il n’y a pas longtemps encore. Ses résultats flatteurs lors de son premier passage au ministère de l’Intérieur, notamment le relatif recul de la criminalité – du moins en pourcentage - et son parachutage à la tête de la puissante UMP, l’Union pour la Majorité présidentielle, le justifiaient aux yeux de beaucoup.
En réalité, la presse de droite allemande, pro USA dans son ensemble, avait trouvé en lui son homme, son héros. Pour trois raisons évidentes.
‘‘L’ennemi de mon ennemi est mon ami’’
D’abord, elle en voulait à l’opportunisme du président français Jacques Chirac, qui avait rejoint après coup le Chancelier allemand Gerard Schröder dans sa diatribe contre la guerre en Irak et surfait sur la vague de sympathie ainsi mise en branle. Ensuite, le quatrième pouvoir allemand se pliait à l’opinion de la grande majorité des habitants outre Rhin, agacés par les noces franco-allemandes jugées à termes préjudiciables pour les contribuables. En effet, la première puissance économique européenne est – à l’instar de la Côte d’Ivoire au sein de l’Umoa - la vache à traire de la CEE et la France, l’un des gros bénéficiaires. Le Chancelier allemand, de la coalition socialo-verte, avait promis réduire les contributions de son pays au niveau communautaire. ‘‘Le pouvait-il jamais, oint par les liens de ce mariage de dé-raison ?’’, se demandait-on du côté de Berlin, à juste titre. Enfin, la grande interrogation des adversaires et même des alliés verts, ayant pourtant en charge la diplomatie allemande, demeurait celle-ci : ‘‘Ce que gagne l’Allemagne à se mettre à dos tous ces alliés originaux comme les USA vaut-il vraiment la chandelle ? Le président français Jacques Chirac, qui ne doit son statut d’homme libre qu’à sa présence à l’Elysée, est-il un partenaire prévisible, contrôlable, voire fiable ?’’, nous confessa en son temps, un haut diplomate. La suite lui donna raison.
Le président français, que pourtant rien n’obligeait, mit tout son poids dans le référendum pour la Constitution européenne, avec le résultat désastreux que l’on sait, non seulement pour lui mais surtout pour son allié, Gerard Schröder. Le dernier ne s’en remettra plus… politiquement !
Pis. Après avoir porté longtemps la France à bout de bras, l’Allemagne pensait enfin pouvoir compter en retour sur le soutien effectif et franc de son allié momentané lors du combat d’une rare âpreté qui opposa Berlin aux USA de Condolezza Rice. 50 ans après la fin de la guerre, la nouvelle génération d’Allemands conduits par Gerard Schröder et son vice-Chancelier Joschka Fischer entendaient, avec une place de représentant permanent au Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies, figurer au nombre des décideurs de la planète. Pour une raison évidente de géopolitique, la France de Chirac y alla sans grand empressement et finit par convaincre les sceptiques quant au bien-fondé de l’alliance contre-nature entre Paris et Berlin.
‘‘Le dos du nageur’’ retrouve ici tout son sens
Bien au delà de cette trahison, c’est la fiabilité tout court du Français qui est mise en cause. En brisant le principal rêve de la coalition socialo-verte, à savoir replacer l’Allemagne dans le concert des grandes nations, Paris rallie les derniers résistants au franco scepticisme. Des Verts de Joschka Fischer, pacifiques invétérés d’hier, aux CDU, chrétiens démocratiques, conservateurs et leur allié CSU, chrétiens socio-démocrates qui ont réunifié l’Allemagne et partant l’Europe sous Helmut Kohl, en passant par les Socialo-démocrates de Gerard Schröder, fils spirituel de Willy Brandt, le père de l’Internationale Socialiste, jusqu’aux libéraux centristes de l’homosexuel déclaré, Guido Westerwelle, plus personne ne comprend et n’accepte le retrait de fait de l’Allemagne des sphères de décisions internationales, et plus personne ne peut le justifier devant un électorat de plus en plus regardant.
Cela, d’autant plus que dans le même temps – depuis 1990 et la première guerre du Golfe notamment - le pays de Goethe s’est propulsé au rang du plus grand pourvoyeur de fonds dans la sphère européenne, loin devant la France qui en récolte les subsides. Qui plus est, l’Allemagne conduit de fait depuis le déclenchement de la guerre en Irak, la coalition alliée en Afghanistan. La première fois en effet depuis la fin de la Guerre, l’armée allemande est présente sur le terrain, apporte son savoir-faire, son expertise, ses fonds…sans contrepartie. Tout comme dans la corne de l’Afrique.
‘‘Les progrès qui sont accomplis dans les deux contrées seraient impensables sans l’engagement allemand’’, confessa Condolezza Rice au Chef de la diplomatie allemande, invité spécial du Secrétaire Général de l’ONU et de l’administration Bush pour une visite d’adieu. Simple coïncidence ? Toujours est-il que la présence de Fischer intervient au moment où les résultats du rapporteur allemand, Detlev Mehlis, sur l’a demain il y a une importante réunion du Groupe international de travail créé par la résolution 1633 et ce qu’on veut, c’est de travailler d’une façon concrète pour que la feuille de route qui nous conduira à des élections justes et libres et transparentes soit approuvée par tout le monde.ssassinat du premier Ministre libanais Hariri fait des vagues. Si officiellement, le pouvoir de Damas est cloué au pilori, la part active jouée par Paris est remontée jusqu’à la maison de verre, rapporte une source onusienne. Et pas seulement dans ce cas…
«Rébellion contre la grande nation», «900 voitures en fumée en une nuit», ‘‘Ghettoïsation à la française’’…
En tournant en dérision l’allié d’hier et surtout en jetant aux orties le dauphin, jusque-là considéré comme le moindre mal, le quatrième pouvoir allemand s’aligne et fait de la récupération. Au premier abord, cela ressemble à un exploit que de réussir à faire converger des journaux de sensibilités aussi différentes. Dans le fond, la convergence de vues est un simple signe des temps. La nouvelle donne dicte le ton. Engela Merkel, la future Chancelier allemand a beau rendre une visite démonstrative à Nicolas Sarkozy lors de son dernier passage dans la France – encore pacifique - ; Edmund Stoiber, le chef des Chrétiens socio-démocrates a beau l’inviter en Bavière, à son investiture, les données ont irrémédiablement changé.
Gerard Schröder encore Chancelier jusqu’à l’investiture de son successeur, le souligna à un Tony Blair quelque peu médusé à Hampton Court, où le dernier avait fait le plein des 25 Etats membres de la CEE pour jeter les bases d’un nouvel ordre économique en ces termes : ‘‘Détrompez vous tous, l’Allemagne a cessé d’être la vache à lait de l’Europe, il en sera de même avec mon successeur…’’ En mémoire, Tony Blair, le président en exercice de la CEE qui avait lui-même refusé de verser sa contribution au motif qu’elle ‘‘ne servait qu’à financer les vaches françaises au lieu des recherches…’’ avait convoqué ce sommet pour aplanir les angles. Le puissant hebdomadaire allemand ‘‘Der Spiegel’’, pourtant de droite, a beau vouloir jouer à l’apaisement en y voyant un ‘‘changement de la ligne politique sur des pas de velours’’, le vin est tiré…Et c’est tant mieux !
Si Abidjan y a beaucoup à gagner, il va falloir y aller avec beaucoup de doigté. ‘‘Les loups ne se mangent pas entre eux’’, nous concédait au début du conflit ivoirien, une de nos sources de la chancellerie allemande, impuissante. Et s’empressait d’ajouter : ‘‘le mariage franco-allemand est trop important pour être sacrifié au nom d’un quelconque conflit lointain.’’ Aujourd’hui, le discours a évolué. En privé, il est de plus en plus question de l’implication unilatérale de Paris dans le conflit ivoirien, qu’il ‘‘transforme volontiers en bourbier pour en tirer le maximum de dividendes.’’
Le caractère épique de la révolte des banlieusards, qui paralysent la France depuis 10 jours s’en trouve ainsi rehaussé. ‘‘La révolte des ghettos’’, de son autre nom, rend plus qu’actuel le conflit ivoirien.
Correspondant en Allemagne
Desiré-Christoph Oulaï - oulmueller@web.de
ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
Inscrit le: 14 Mar 2005 Messages: 994 Localisation: T.O
Posté le: Mar 08 Nov 2005 01:22 Sujet du message:
Comme ils savent que je viens de France mes collegues me prennent tous les jours la tete pour me demander ce qui se passe en France
deja qu'ils on ete pas mal choques lors des incendie a paris
avec les emeutes c'est carrement la folie je suis la nouvelle star du bureau _________________ The pussy is free, but the crack cost money (BDP 1989)
J'ai reçu un coup de fil du pays. Ils ont commencés à s'inquiété.
Avant c'était moi qui les appelait. Quand TF1 titrait en gros Guerre civil en côte d'ivoire..la Côte d'ivoire à feu et à sang....Abidjan s'embrase... alors que sur place tout allait bien.
Dans les 2 cas, il y a exagération médiatique.
La France est aujourd'hui sujet à la l'information spectacle, à l'exagération qui carresse parfois la désinformation.
ça me fait rire.
Je ne me sens nullement concerné par cette crise là. Mais franchement, ça me fais rigoler.
Chacun à son tour chez le coiffeur mamadou. _________________ Nicolas Sarkozy « La France, économiquement, n’a pas besoin de l’Afrique. Les flux entre la France et l’Afrique représentent 2% de notre économie ».
Inscrit le: 14 Mar 2005 Messages: 994 Localisation: T.O
Posté le: Mar 08 Nov 2005 02:19 Sujet du message:
Citation:
kennedy a écrit:
Comme ils savent que je viens de France mes collegues me prennent tous les jours la tete pour me demander ce qui se passe en France
deja qu'ils on ete pas mal choques lors des incendie a paris
avec les emeutes c'est carrement la folie je suis la nouvelle star du bureau
Bonne idée ça, les Grioonautes vivant hors de Gaule, donnez-nous vos impressions !!!
Tu peux détailler, kennedy ?
y an a qui crois que c'est la revolution bis, l'evenement fait pas mal de une de journaux, avec des grosses voitures pleines de flammes en illustration
le plus drole c'est qu'a l'issue de cela j'ai une de mes collegues americaines avec qui je discutais de la france qui me dit qu'elle a visité ce pays
elle me demande ensuite pourquoi les policiers Francais passent leurs temps a faire des controles d'identités, elle d'ailleurs faillit s'embrouiller avec eux a cause de tous ces controles ( il faut savoir qu'ici les policiers ne controlent pas les gens dans la rue)
pour elle ca ne se faisait pas et c'etait tres impolie de leur part de deranger de brave gens sans donner aucune raison _________________ The pussy is free, but the crack cost money (BDP 1989)
The spreading violence in France has brought the twin topics of immigration and integration into the open.
The unrest has lifted the lid on a boiling stew of poverty, discrimination and desperation among families descended from immigrants.
The riots are displaying discrimination and ethnic tensions.
Two teenagers of North African descent were accidentally electrocuted in a power substation where they took refuge as they were chased by police in Clichy-sous-Bois, an underprivileged suburb east of Paris. The news drove many onto the streets.
The police responded by firing tear-gas grenades and, on occasion, blank rounds into the air.
The battlefield of Paris has been repeated in other parts of the country, such as Toulouse and Rennes.
The unrest was concentrated in areas that are home to Paris's most neglected minorities - citizens of black and North African heritage.
The government's dispatch of more armed riot police into affected regions has done little to calm tensions.
Bullets cannot identify the real cause of the anger and frustration of young Arabs and Africans.
French observers and sociologists are not surprised by the unrest.
The resentment over government neglect, high unemployment and relegation to shabby suburbs provided dry tinder for the flare-up of violence in the African immigrant community.
France's assimilation policy has failed to absorb the North African immigrants that arrived to work in the 1950s. Some 5 or 6 million French citizens are immigrants from North Africa, most of them Muslims.
Many of the immigrants' suburbs are cut off from the rest of French society by barriers of poverty and cultural alienation. In the suburbs for immigrants and their offspring, there are mostly substandard houses. Unemployment stands at 19.6 per cent - double the national average - and at more than 30 per cent among 21 to 29-year-olds, according to official figures. Incomes are 75 per cent below the average.
The French Government labels these places "sensitive urban zones," mocking France's official policies of assimilation and equality.
No country tolerates riots. But in the long term, it will take equal opportunities in education, housing and employment to keep the riot police off the meanest streets.
The rioting by immigrant youths has revealed a profound cleavage in French society. It should serve as a wake-up call to the rest of the world when they are confronted with a large influx of immigrants from other countries or labour mobility within their countries.
In his public address on Sunday, Chirac sent two messages. His country must restore security and public order, with speedy trials for the rioters. France is also determined to promote respect, justice and equal opportunities for all.
Law-and-order policies are not a cure-all. A solution requires a much more constructive approach getting to the root of the problem.
ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
Not James Baldwin, my all-time favorite author, who published a blistering indictment of American racism called "The Fire Next Time" in 1963.
In "Fire," Baldwin wrote of the need for blacks and whites to come to terms with the past and make a future together or face destruction.
During the 1960s, many believed he was talking about an America divided by issues of race and class.
While there have been riots in America since then, it's nothing like what's happening in Paris these days.
Perhaps you've missed the latest international news; Paris has been rocked by 12 consecutive nights of widespread rioting. One night alone, more than 1,400 cars were reportedly burned across the country.
The violence began after the electrocution of two teens of North African descent who apparently were hiding from police in a power substation. The ghettos of Paris - in the suburbs as opposed to the inner city - have been the scene of chaos, including civil disobedience and ugly violence against law enforcement.
French President Jacques Chirac is clueless about how to address the roots of the violence, said to be long-standing French policies that alienate dark-skinned immigrant youth and discriminate in terms of education and job opportunity.
In many ways, even thousands of miles away, it sounds strangely familiar.
I monitored CNN International News channel last weekend trying to gain insight into what appeared to me to be one of the most intense race riots in recent memory.
The riots outside Paris weren't initially described in racial terms, but I had a strong hunch issues of race would turn out to be involved.
I was right.
The rioters were mainly blacks of African and Arab descent whose parents and grandparents came from various former colonies to live in France. They were angry, not only at the death of the two teenagers, but with their continued irrelevance in society.
Some of the international reporting captured the voices of the young people who blamed the violence largely on unruly perpetrators but also on a culture of poverty and lack of hope in their neglected communities.
One report noted the frequent incidents of police brutality in the areas, along with the 50% jobless rate. Also, many pointed fingers at the lack of fathers in poor households.
Again, it sounded awfully familiar.
The rioting continued over the weekend, with one French official calling it a "shock wave spreading across the country."
Just as many people were shocked to learn in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that 70% of fun-loving New Orleans was black and poor, it's an eye-opener to see a world-class city such as Paris exposed as just another hostile place for those with dark skin and little prospect for success.
Most times, Milwaukee has little to do with France; our annual Bastille Days celebration has about as much to do with French culture as Juneteenth Day.
But we're all susceptible to this kind of violence as long as some members of our community feel ignored and neglected until it's too late.
Thousands of miles away, we would be wise to watch and try to understand why the powder keg blew, if only to learn enough to keep it from blowing up here.
ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
Tuesday 08 November 2005, 20:30 Makka Time, 17:30 GMT
President Jacques Chirac has declared a state of emergency to impose curfews on riot-hit cities and towns, an extraordinary measure to halt France's worst civil unrest in decades after violence raged for a 12th night.
The state-of-emergency decree allowing curfews where needed will become effective at midnight on Tuesday and has an initial 12-day limit.
Police, massively reinforced as the violence has fanned out from its initial flashpoint in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, are expected to enforce the curfews. The army has not been called in.
Local officials "will be able to impose curfews on the areas where this decision applies," Chirac said at a cabinet meeting. "It is necessary to accelerate the return to calm."
The recourse to a 1955 state-of-emergency law that dates back to France's war in Algeria was a measure both of the gravity of mayhem that has spread to hundreds of French towns and cities and of the determination of Chirac's sorely tested government to quash it.
"I have decided ... to give the forces of order supplementary measures of action to ensure the protection of our citizens and their property," Chirac said.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the authorities would be able to restrict the movement of people and vehicles and to set up perimeters around trouble spots.
He said 1500 police and gendarme reservists would be deployed as reinforcements for 8000 officers on the ground but ruled out army intervention.
Tough measure
A town mayor near the centre of the riots, in the northeastern Paris suburb of Raincy, imposed a municipal curfew from Monday to "avoid a tragedy".
State authorities in the northern town of Amiens were the first to declare an overnight curfew on Tuesday.
De Villepin told national television late on Monday that the curfew powers would be invoked under a 60-year-old law first brought in as an unsuccessful attempt to quell an insurrection in Algeria, at a time when the north African country was a French colony.
But Elisabeth Guigou, a Socialist deputy from the northeastern Paris suburbs, said that invoking a curfew law passed during the Algerian war was "not the best reference" for fighting unrest among youths mostly of North African Arab and African origin.
The French cabinet met in special session on Tuesday to put the plan into effect.
"I confirm to you that the decision in principle was taken," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said after the meeting.
Speaking from Paris, Michele al-Kik, Aljazeera's bureau chief in France, said police had installed closed-circuit cameras in and around the city of Paris in an effort to curb the unrest and arrest rioters.
Legal dilemma
Private security was also called upon in some areas, hired by the municipality to guard private and public property.
But this arrangement causes a legal dilemma over whether these companies are legally mandated to open fire at rioters suspected of violating the law.
The violence started on 27 October among youths in a northeastern Paris suburb angry over the deaths of two teenagers who were electrocuted, but it has grown into a nationwide insurrection by suburban youth burning and clashing with police.
The mayhem is forcing France to confront anger building for decades in neglected suburbs and among the French-born children of mainly African origin.
The French teenagers whose deaths sparked the rioting were of Arab-African descent.
Conciliatory
President Jacques Chirac, in private comments more conciliatory than his warnings on Sunday that rioters would be caught and punished, acknowledged in a meeting on Monday with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga that France has not integrated immigrant youths, she said.
Chirac deplored the "ghettoisation of youths of African or North African origin", and recognised "the incapacity of French society to fully accept them", Vike-Freiberga said.
France "has not done everything possible for these youths, supported them so they feel understood, heard and respected", Chirac added, noting that unemployment runs as high as 40% in some suburbs, four times the national rate, according to Vike-Freiberga.
Interior Minister Sarkozy is accused of inflaming violence with tough talk and calling troublemakers "scum".
Vehicles torched
Suburban youths quoted by Le Parisien newspaper said the emergency measures "won't change anything".
"This isn't going to solve things," one said. "More repression means more destruction ... more cops is just provocation."
The Interior Ministry said on Tuesday that 1173 vehicles had been torched during the night, compared with 1408 the previous night.
At least four police officers were hurt, compared with 36 on Sunday night. About 330 rioters were detained
In Toulouse, youths set fire to a bus and 21 cars, police said.
At least two cars were set ablaze near Lille and two more in Strasbourg, Reuters reporters said.
Police said 14 cars were set alight in the Yvelines district west of Paris and 17 in Seine-Saint-Denis north of the capital, home to many Arab and African immigrants where the unrest began
Among the hundreds arrested in 12 nights of rioting, most have been teenagers, while some were younger. Nearly all are from France's large Arab and black minorities.
"For my children I am the embodiment of failure," said Meziane, 50, a former journalist who came to France from Algeria at the end of the 1980s.
A father of three, he has worked as a house painter and a waiter but is currently unemployed.
"How do you expect my children to listen to me or want to be like me, when I can never say 'yes' to the things that they want? And this in a society where they are under constant pressure to consume," he said at his home in the Paris suburb of La Courneuve.
ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
Des émigrés qui n’ont pas pu sauter le mur à Ceuta pour atteindre l’Eldorado européen et qui sont charterisés vers le point de départ. Des émeutes dans les banlieues parisiennes depuis une douzaine de jours.
Voici 12 jours que la France connaît l’une des émeutes les plus graves de son histoire. Le pays est sous le choc, Paris retient son souffle. Plus de 1.500 véhicules incendiées, 36 policiers blessés, des émeutiers également, qui comptent déjà trois morts dont les deux jeunes qui sont à l’origine de cette révolte des banlieues, voire des villes à l’instar de Toulouse. Les écoles et les autres symboles de la République dont les commissariats de police, et les mairies ne sont pas épargnés. Depuis hier soir, on signale l’extension de la violence en Belgique et en Allemagne.
De mémoire de journaliste, on n’avait pas vu cela depuis 30 ans. “ On brûle, on casse, on détruit… Clichy, Aulnay, Sevran… ”, écrit un confrère. Ce sont ces “ bleds perdus ” que ceux qui reviennent souvent de leur exil doré parisien nous présentent sous l’euphémisme de banlieues pour nous éblouir, nous les villageois des tropiques. Ces banlieues ne sont ni plus ni moins que ce que sont Souboum, Nkongmondo, Bépanda-Voirie ou Yonyong et Mambanda. … Ces sous-quartiers de chez nous où s’entassent dans la misère les rebuts de la société au propre comme au figuré et qui symbolisent la promiscuité. Il faut avoir fait un tour dans ces cavernes à la périphérie de la ville-lumière pour se rendre compte que ce qui arrive aujourd’hui est la conséquence d’une politique d’intégration aussi hasardeuse que ce qu’on appelle la politique africaine de la France. Une politique qui en réalité fabrique des citoyens de seconde zone et des sous-hommes. Une politique qui a montré ses limites pour ne pas dire qu’elle a échoué lamentablement. Conséquence, la France a fabriqué des monstres qui ont entrepris de la dévorer.
Dans notre édition n° 1974 du 28/09/2005, nous publions une étude de l’Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (Insee), étude publiée le 15 septembre 2005, sous le titre “ Les immigrés en France ” et qui lève un pan de voile sur les réalités de l’immigration en France. Selon cette étude, 4,31 millions de personnes (en situation régulière ou non), soit 7,4% de la population résidant dans ce pays sont des immigrés. 2/3 de cette population dont la moitié est arrivée il y a plus de 31 ans, ont un âge qui varie de 25 à 64 ans. Ils proviennent en majorité d’Europe (45%), d’Afrique (39%) et d’Asie (12,7%). On note une véritable percée d’immigrés d’origine maghrébine dont le nombre a doublé depuis 1962 et représente aujourd’hui 30% de la population totale, constituée de moitié par les femmes. L’indice de fécondité de ces femmes est supérieur à la moyenne française (2,4 contre 1,7) alors que leur taux d’activité, même s’il a connu une progression notable (+7, 9 points) pour celles âgées de 25 à 59 ans), demeure inférieur. Si 3,26 millions des immigrés demeurent des étrangers, 1,56 millions ont acquis la nationalité française, sans doute grâce au mariage mixte opté par 1/3 des immigrés. 79% d’entre eux motivent leur expatriation par des raisons familiales, note l’étude de l’Insee.
Les ghettos de la marginalisation
C’est dire que c’est une partie importante de la population française qui est confinée dans les ghettos avec tout ce que cela comporte de marginalisation et de rejet. Combien de ces jeunes gens nés de ces familles arrivent à recevoir une formation et une éducation adéquates ? Ces jeunes gens qui écument les banlieues françaises ne sont-ils pas les produits d’une société et d’une civilisation hybrides, nés de parents issus de civilisations à l’opposé de celle dans laquelle ils évoluent. Sans fraternité établie, mais au nom d’une liberté et d’une égalité à têtes chercheuses, l’autorité d’un père de famille immigré est diluée dans un milieu où à tout moment il peut être bouté hors de son logis, pour l’abandonner à une femme et à des enfants qui n’ont plus qu’à croître comme les herbes folles de nos savanes et forêts.
Sur le plan de l’intégration sociale, des grandes différences entre les immigrés et les nationaux persistent, qui s’atténuent plutôt lentement. L’amélioration amorcée dans les années 1980 n’a pas totalement gommé les clivages. “ On voit une tendance à la réduction des écarts entre les immigrés et le reste de la population même si l’image est très contrastée selon la provenance géographique ”, souligne à cet effet Chloé Tawa, rédactrice-en-chef de la publication “ Les immigrés en France ”. Même si entre 1982 et 1999, le nombre d’immigrés titulaires au plus du certificat d’études a baissé de moitié (81% à 42%), ils possèdent toujours moins de diplômes que le reste de la population française. Les autorités de l’Education nationale relativisent néanmoins cette réalité. “ A caractéristiques sociales ou familiales comparables, les enfants d’immigrés ont des chances d’être lycéens au moins égales ”, affirme Jean-Paul Caille, statisticien au ministère. Il n’en demeure pas moins qu’en dépit de ces clivages, les injustices, les inégalités et les autres frustrations générées dans nos pays par les satrapes locaux des autorités françaises poussent nos jeunes et moins jeunes à préférer les ghettos occidentaux aux villages et villes de nos pays. Certains préfèrent une situation de croque-mort, de balayeur de rue ou de baby-sitter en France que d’être cadre ou agent de maîtrise dans leur pays d’origine.
En attendant l’intégration
Et pourtant, les immigrés, de manière générale, font partie des défavorisés. Ils sont plus pauvres que le reste de la population. En 2001 15% des ménages immigrés vivaient en dessous du seuil de pauvreté, c’est-à-dire avec un revenu des 602 euros par mois et par personne. En 2002, le salaire moyen des immigrés s’élevait à 1.300 euros contre 1.500 euros pour la moyenne nationale. Dans le domaine de l’emploi, des évolutions positives sont certes perceptibles. Entre 1992 et 2002, la proportion d’ouvriers au sein des immigrés a réculé de 13 ;5 points parmi ceux ayant un emploi contre seulement 1,8 points pour les non-immigrés. Mais, le taux de chômage qui étreint les immigrés est le double de celui des autres, 16,4% en 2002, avec un accent pour les personnes originaires du Maghreb, d’Afrique et de Turquie (un sur cinq). Contrairement aux années 1960 et 1970, le taux d’activité des femmes immigrés a connu une progression de +7,8 points entre 1992 et 2002 (femmes âgées de 25 à 59 ans). L’étude de l’Insee met donc à nu le vrai visage de l’immigration française en montrant la place occupée par ces immigrés ; le bas de l’échelle sociale.
Jusqu’au moment à nous allions sous presse hier soir, aucune issue n’était visible. Les émeutiers exigent le limogeage ou la démission de Nicolas Sarkozy, le sémillant et très médiatique ministre français de l’intérieur. Lui-même descendant d’immigré comme bien d’autres et qui a jeté de l’huile sur le feu en jurant de nettoyer la pègre au “ karcher ”. Reste à savoir si le président de l’Ump va baisser pavillon devant “ des négrillons et des bougnouls ” au plus fort de la révolte de ces derniers. D’autres envisagent la démission de Jacques Chirac lui-même comme le fit Charles de Gaulle en 1968. On n’en est pas encore-là. Mais la violence prend de l’ampleur. Près de 280 communes françaises sont déjà contaminées et quelque 10.000 policiers et gendarmes affrontent les insurgés d’une chienlit que les autorités françaises par la bouche du Premier ministre qualifient d’intolérable.
Affaire à suivre.
Par Frédéric BOUNGOU Et Jacques DOO BELL
Le 08-11-2005
ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
La Chine préoccupée pour ses citoyens vivant en France, selon le porte-parole des AE
Citation:
Nos ghettos vus d'Angleterre, par Tariq Ramadan
je pensais pas voir ça un jour
Citation:
Si vous voulez de bons reportages de fond, branchez-vous sur... CNN (eh oui ! je sais, ça fait bizarre d'en arriver là !)
Et pourquoi tu dis ça...............,non sérieusement ceux qui ont CNN,regarder!Là dernière fois que j'ai reagrdé les news c'était il y a un 2h.A 17h(heure de Guyane) ils ont interview un sénateur de L'Ump qui était aigrit que les américains se délectent de ce qui se passe en france(parce qu'ils prennent bien leurs revanches ).Quand la journaliste lui disaient que les gens se plaignaient de raçisme,de problème sociauc etc... le sénateur a démander qu'ils arrêtent d'exagerer que dans sa ville il y a des gens issuent de l'immigration qui s'en sortent,qui travaillent ,que certes il y a des problèmes,mais la plupart des gens s'en sortent,que ces émeutes sont le fait de gens qui ne veulent pas travailler,des dealers de drogues etc...Puis une heure plus tard ils ont interroger un rappeur ,Abdel malik,originaire du congo,qui a bien résumé les problèmes raçiaux,je pense.
En tous cas,je suis bien content de voir que les médias étrangers montrent le visage de la france,c'est bien fait pour les journalistes français qui passent leur temps à faire de la désinformation sur les problèmes de leurs propre pays,et sur des pays étranger.Il parait que les russes en comparer les banlieus françaises à la Tchétchénie _________________ "tout nèg a nèg
ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
Moi ce qui m'a tué c'est les journaux israeliens qui pésentent ça comme l'intifada LOL
Mais ça montre bien une chose: ce côté "ghetto" de la France est resté bien opaque. Pour les Américains par exemple, Paris c'est la Tour Eiffel, les beaux monuments, la baguette de pain et c'est hyper curieux de voir ce qui sepasse en ce moment.
Inscrit le: 14 Mar 2005 Messages: 994 Localisation: T.O
Posté le: Jeu 10 Nov 2005 18:32 Sujet du message:
Analyse Toronto star avec interview des familles dont les enfants ont ete electrocutes
http://www.thestar.com 'Cast aside'
by France
Nov. 10, 2005. 06:42 AM
SANDRO CONTENTA
EUROPEAN BUREAU
CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, FRANCE—Bouna Traore's mother was cooking his favourite dish when the lights went out in her neighbourhood.
This was no ordinary blackout in the impoverished La Pama district on the outskirts of Paris.
Just a short walk from the apartment, 15-year-old Bouna lay dead, electrocuted after hiding from police inside a transformer in an electrical substation, triggering the blackout. Also burnt to death was his friend and soccer mate, Zyed Benna, 17.
"She never thought that it was because her son had died," Bana Traore, Bouna's 22-year-old sister, said in an interview yesterday.
Reports that police had chased two teenagers to their deaths spread quickly through the complex of four-storey apartment buildings that evening of Oct. 27. Within hours, youths began burning cars and confronting police in violent protests that would spread to cities across France, forcing the government to impose a state of emergency and casting a glare of publicity on festering problems of immigration and discrimination.
Facing unrest not seen since the student riots of the 1960s, some French towns are now locked down by nighttime curfews after more than 6,000 cars were torched and 1,500 people detained.
The accidental deaths of Bouna and Zyed, and the two weeks of unrest they triggered, have turned the teenagers into symbols of France's failure to integrate its citizens of ethnic minority backgrounds, particularly its 5 million Muslims.
Aside from a statement last Friday by Bouna's brother Siyakah urging calm, the family has not spoken publicly about Bouna's death and the chaos that followed.
Yesterday, his parents accompanied his body back to their ancestral African village of Diaguly in Mauritania. They brought all of Bouna's clothes to distribute, according to the custom of their village, to people poorer than themselves.
Bouna will be buried next to his grandfather, who settled in France after fighting as a French soldier with Allied forces in World War II.
"When they needed us in the war, they used Africans as shields for the French soldiers by putting us on the front lines. Now that they don't need us any more, they cast us aside," said Bouna's aunt, Fatoumata.
Her anger stems from a life on the margins of French society, where ethnic minorities often live segregated in impoverished neighbourhoods on the outskirts of cities, struggling with unemployment and dropout rates significantly higher than the national average.
At the housing estate Bouna called home, the walls are scrawled with graffiti tributes: "Bouna rest in peace."
Bouna's father, Seydou, works as a street cleaner for the city of Paris and his mother, Tonkhonte, does odd jobs when she can. Together they were able to buy their apartment in La Pama, a private housing complex filled with residents of Arab, African and Turkish backgrounds.
Bouna was one of 11 children in his family, all born in Paris and most still living in their three-bedroom apartment. He was a gifted soccer player and dreamed of one day becoming a professional. He loved rap music, dancing and looking good.
"He was always looking at himself in the mirror," Bana said.
Bana said her brother was well integrated. But her aunt describes him as caught between two worlds.
"The children born here are rejected by both sides: In France they see them as Africans and in Africa they're seen as French," said Fatoumata, 40.
The day he died, Bouna walked to a nearby middle-class neighbourhood to meet his friends for a game of soccer.
"That neighbourhood has everything — tennis courts, soccer field, cinemas, a clinic. Here, we have nothing," Bana said.
What happened after the game finished is unclear. Bana said her brother and his friends were simply hanging out in a group when police arrived in a hurry. Startled, the teenagers ran, eager to avoid identity checks that youths say often lead to long interrogations.
"My brother was never in trouble with the police, but he was afraid of them," Bana said. "The truth is that the police here are usually violent. They have no respect for us."
Police say they arrived to investigate a break-in at a construction site. Six youths were arrested and later released.
Police insist they didn't chase Bouna and two of his friends into the electrical station. But one of the youths who survived the accident, 17-year-old Muttin Altun, has said through his lawyer that they did.
"The police knew that they were chasing them into someplace dangerous," said Bana. "They should have just stopped chasing them. They should have protected them instead."
Bana said police didn't inform the family of the accident. Her parents learned of it when Bouna's friends knocked on the door with the news, about 2 1/2 hours after his death.
Bouna's father raced to the scene of the accident.
"He wanted his son to get up for him. He couldn't believe that his son was dead," said Bana, whose family has called for an independent inquiry into the deaths. "We thought the riots were crazy. They won't bring back my brother; they won't solve anything," Bana said.
Like many young people in the Paris suburbs, Bana believes the riots were fuelled by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy describing impoverished and segregated neighbourhoods as places that had to be cleaned of "scum."
She's taking courses to become a medical secretary. In the meantime, she said she has difficulty even finding work as a cleaner. She said employers will often tell her over the telephone that they have work and ask her to forward a CV.
"I send it and I never hear back. I'm sure it's because I have an African name. There's racism in everything in France, in housing, jobs, school — everything," she said.
She's spent her whole life in France, but since her brother's death, she's not sure if she can continue calling it home.
"If things remain as racist as they are, if we continue to be rejected as French citizens, maybe I'll have to move," she said.
Additional articles by Sandro Contenta _________________ The pussy is free, but the crack cost money (BDP 1989)
Dernière édition par Kennedy le Jeu 10 Nov 2005 18:41; édité 1 fois
Inscrit le: 14 Mar 2005 Messages: 994 Localisation: T.O
Posté le: Jeu 10 Nov 2005 18:36 Sujet du message:
How the doctrine of `Frenchness' failed
Nov. 10, 2005. 11:12 AM
LYNDA HURST
The day before he declared a state of emergency in a bid to curb the wave of rioting in France, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin stated the obvious:
"The republic is at a moment of truth. What's being questioned is the effectiveness of our integration model."
What, in fact, is being questioned is how France has applied it.
Unlike Canadian multiculturalism that encourages new immigrant groups to retain their cultural heritage — even at the cost of a clear-cut national identity — France has long chosen the route of integration, or assimilation, into the existing identity.
Its republican creed holds that everyone, once they are citizens, all are then identical in their "Frenchness."
At least, that was the theory.
The Canadian notion that different ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities deserve special recognition has been unthinkable. American affirmative action theory, anathema.
"The policy that France has pursued for 100 years is that to be French, you have to adopt the French culture and become `invisible,' and then everything falls into place," says Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.
And it worked. Assimilation was highly effective in the past for the simple reason that immigrants came from other European countries, were white and culturally similar. No major adjustments were needed on the part of the newcomers — or the French.
After the end of the Algerian war of independence in 1962, however, the pattern of immigration changed. Algerians and other black or Arab, but predominantly Muslim, North Africans started to arrive. Needing a cheap labour pool, the country happily ushered in about 500,000 by the end of the 1960s.
In 1974, however, France was back on its feet economically and ended its labour migration program. But the immigrants didn't go back. Why should they? They were French citizens, who now had families. Today, their total number has grown to 5 million out of a 60-million population.
Nobody paid attention to the implications, says Papademetriou, who worked in Paris in the early 1990s. Like many countries with a changing immigrant demographic, France went on "automatic pilot."
"Integration has merit," he says, "except when you pretend that certain groups are not being marginalized and stigmatized.
"Because the French don't consider themselves racist — `Us, are you kidding?' — they didn't pay attention to what was happening, to what was obvious to outsiders. They didn't test for discrimination."
What he means is that, in refusing to acknowledge ethnic, let alone racial differences, France never collected the census and workforce data that multicultural systems routinely monitor to assess how new groups are faring.
The French government said such data was offensive and anti-integration. But critics say it was afraid of what the statistics would reveal: rampant discrimination-fuelled unemployment rates and housing segregation. Integration was a fantasy.
The current immigrant riots are not the first in France, just the most widespread. A similar "intifada" broke out in Paris 15 years ago in response to conditions in the rundown suburban social-housing ghettos, the banlieues.
There are more of them today and they're not just in Paris; 1,100 banlieues across the country.
Though it may appear that France has been oblivious to the growing problems, it has been trying, officially, to come to terms with population changes. In 1989, the grandly named High Council for Integration was created, followed by the Directorate for Populations and Migration, then one council, regional commission and "Plan for Social Cohesion" after another, all charged with making integration work.
The frantic round of activity failed to impress one of the men at the top, former prime minister Jean-Marie Raffarin. In 2003, he said: "Instead of trying to give real meaning to equality and genuine integration, we've had slogans and unenforced laws which have long acted as a smokescreen."
Nothing much changed.
"Not unlike the U.S., the French have been listening to their own rhetoric about exceptionalism," says Papademetriou. "Before the riots, their model may have only needed tweaking. Now they could face a sea change."
Others wonder. It is not just one-culture integration, rather than laissez-faire multiculturalism, that France believes is superior. It also vehemently defends the principle of official secularism.
In 1905, the doctrine of laiceté was enacted to bar religion from the public arena, particularly the education system, to ensure equality before the law regardless of private beliefs.
The doctrine made formal the secularism introduced after the French Revolution and underlined by Napoleon. For a century, it has been seen as a badge of honour in this overwhelmingly, if only nominally, Roman Catholic country.
But with the arrival of large numbers of Islamic immigrants, whose religion and cultural identity are deeply intertwined, many French fear that secularism could be chipped away at until it is one day destroyed. It's why there was so much public support last year for the ban in public schools on ostentatious religious symbols, Muslim headscarves included. It was not anti-Muslim or any other faith: it was anti-religion, period.
In an attempt to bridge the chasm between secularism and Islam, France created the Council of the Muslim Faith in 2003 to act as a liaison between the government and religious leaders — and ultimately, it was speculated, to promote a French form of Islam.
But large sections of the French population are still unhappy with what they see as hugely conflicting value systems. Bluntly put, the attitude of many has been: "You may be citizens, but you're not culturally French and as long as you slaughter sheep at the end of Ramadan, segregate the sexes, pressure women to wear head-coverings, you never will be."
Mark LeVine, a specialist in European Islam at the University of California, says Muslim immigrants "threaten the overarching French identity," but that a resolution to the current crisis isn't simply a matter of France opting for multiculturalism over integration.
Both approaches have problems, he says, but the forces now in play are far larger than either.
"They start with the French refusal to admit how bad their colonial past was. They have a blind spot when it comes to visible minorities from former colonies and, when they are Muslim, Islam in itself becomes a problem."
The attacks of 9/11 didn't help. The French delegation told the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination earlier this year that "the increase in racial intolerance in France has been influenced by international events."
LeVine thinks a stronger factor is the impact of globalization on France's economy. Like the rest of Europe, it is grappling with how much it will have to dismantle the social safety net.
"Its government has to make hard choices on where they spend the money — in the banlieues? Or on health care, on the aging, the middle class, the tax-paying petits bourgeois, the `real French'? And it has to protect its right flank."
The pressures on France are a "microcosm" of what other nations could face, he says bluntly.
Demetrios Papademetriou agrees, noting that other European countries are panicking over the riots: "French integration has been shown to be an emperor with no clothes. But the Dutch, who've spent billions on multiculturalism, also have serious problems and they're having conniptions.
"The question now is: How do you inoculate other nations from what is happening in France?" _________________ The pussy is free, but the crack cost money (BDP 1989)
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Loathing, anger fuelled French riots
Chaos eases, but youth warns one mistake and `it will be war'
Nov. 9, 2005. 10:45 AM
SANDRO CONTENTA
EUROPEAN BUREAU
AULNAY SOUS-BOIS, France—At the Rose of the Winds housing estate, the trashing and burning of the community police post still makes for lively conversation.
"People were so happy to get inside and destroy everything because normally when they're in there they've got handcuffs on," said Saeed, 26, admitting he was one of the thrilled participants.
The young residents of this impoverished, ethnic minority ghetto outside Paris describe the gutting of the police post Friday as a cathartic outburst against a dead-end existence that often leads to petty crime.
"Things are calming down, but everyone is just waiting. If the police make one mistake, it will be war in all the suburbs," said Karin, 22, who like Saeed would not give his last name.
A government-imposed state of emergency, which took effect at midnight after nearly two weeks of violence, has eased unrest in the charred suburbs of Paris. But youths continued to throw Molotov cocktails at police and set cars ablaze in other French cities during violent protests against racism and unemployment.
In the southern city of Lyon, officials were forced to shut down the subway system after a gasoline bomb exploded in a station, a government spokesman said, adding no one was hurt.
Late last night, rioters looted and set fire to two stores in Arras, in the northern Pas-de-Calais region, and burned a newspaper office in Grasses in the southeast Alpes-Maritimes.
"The Republic faces a moment of truth," French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told the national assembly yesterday.
"France is wounded. It cannot recognize itself in its streets and devastated areas, in these outbursts of hatred and violence which destroy and kill."
He made clear that France had failed to live up to its egalitarian ideals and expressed doubts about its assimilation model of integration.
President Jacques Chirac resorted to a 1955 law that dates back to the Algerian war to decree the state of emergency, which paves the way for curfews to be imposed in areas where local authorities deem it necessary to curb rioting.
Those who violate the curfew face up to two months in jail and a $4,400 (U.S.) fine. Minors face one month in jail.
Under the decree, officials can put troublemakers under house arrest, ban or limit the movement of people and vehicles and close public spaces where gangs gather, Villepin said. But he cautioned that restoring order "will take time."
The northern city of Amiens was the first to announce a curfew, saying unaccompanied youths would not be allowed to walk the streets of the city from midnight until 6 a.m.
More than 5,000 cars were torched and one man was beaten to death during 12 days of unrest. Some 1,500 people were detained, most of them French youths of African or Arab background. Fast-track trials to punish rioters have some human rights advocates concerned.
"The intensity of this violence is on the way down," said National Police Chief Michel Gaudin, adding that rioting was reported in 226 towns across France overnight Monday compared with nearly 300 the night before.
The violence exploded Oct. 27 after two teenagers were accidentally killed while hiding from police in a power station in a northeastern suburb of Paris.
At Aulnay sous-Bois, also in Paris's northeastern outskirts, two days of rioting in the poetically named Rose of the Winds estate, where high-rise apartments sprawl for several blocks, ended on the weekend.
At the shopping centre at the entrance to the complex, men of Turkish and North African origin play cards in a crowded coffee shop and adolescents race up and down the shopping corridors with bicycles. They're eager to talk about life in the ghetto, but leery of being fully identified.
Mohammad, 56, described immigrating from Algeria 35 years ago to work on a car assembly line until an injury forced him to stop working in 1993.
"Racism explains all the problems here," said Mohammad, whose five children, aged 5 to 22, were all born in France. "Everywhere the children go, they are made to feel that they are not really French."
In some ethnic minority neighbourhoods, unemployment is as high as 40 per cent — four times the national average.
"Young people are fed up with unemployment. They're on the street with nothing to do," Mohammad said.
Paris, although a short train ride away, may as well be another world.
"Paris is the city for the rich. Us, they put us here, like animals in a pen," Mohammad said.
Reda, who is 23 and unemployed, pulled out his French identity card: "Look, I'm a French citizen but my name is Arab, and that makes all the difference."
"The reality is that the French are racists. They just don't admit it," said Reda, whose parents emigrated from Morocco.
A serious problem on the estate is children as young as 14 who have either dropped out of school or been thrown out. "They're not in school and they don't have jobs," said Saeed, who lives on welfare. "So they hang around, start smoking dope and drinking alcohol, and then they need money. Then they do what it takes to get it."
Villepin announced reforms that would open apprenticeship programs to youths as young as 14. He also vowed to reduce unemployment and increase educational opportunities for residents of impoverished suburbs.
Racism and unemployment only got worse after the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks on the United States, when all Muslims became suspect in French eyes, the youths said.
After the attacks, Rose of the Winds residents with even the smallest criminal record lost jobs as baggage handlers or cleaners at the nearby Charles de Gaulle airport, they added.
The youths describe being "provoked" by police officers who repeatedly ask them to show their identity cards. They applaud the torching of the police post, but lament the fact the local sports centre suffered the same fate. _________________ The pussy is free, but the crack cost money (BDP 1989)
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France's riots are Europe's problem
Immigrants were treated as cheap labour for years
Across a continent neglect and racism give a wake-up call
Nov. 8, 2005. 04:20 AM
SANDRO CONTENTA
EUROPEAN BUREAU
LONDON—Youth riots are spreading across France and ringing out as a warning call throughout Western Europe.
A massive failure to integrate youths of immigrant backgrounds, which last night exploded into a 12th evening of violence in France, is at the heart of troubled race relations on much of the continent.
Nightly images of French youths clashing with police, trashing shops and turning streets into roaring bonfires of cars have some observers warning that any European country could be next.
"Our French neighbours are giving us the loudest alarm call they can. Wake up everybody," Trevor Phillips, head of Britain's Commission for Race Relations, wrote in a newspaper column.
The unrest began in Paris's suburban ghettoes on Oct. 27 and grew to a frenzy of violence that has spread to 300 French towns. About 4,700 cars have been torched, dozens of police officers injured and 1,200 people detained at least temporarily.
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced last night that local officials would be empowered to impose curfews, under a 1955 law that allows declaration of a state of emergency. The law was originally passed to curb unrest in Algeria during the war that led to that country's independence.
Villepin said 1,500 police and gendarme reservists were being called up to reinforce the 8,000 who are already deployed to curb rioting. He resisted calls to call up the army to quell the riots, but he promised that the government would take "the necessary measures to re-establish order very quickly throughout France."
More than a dozen countries have issued warnings to travellers to be aware of the possible dangers of visiting France.
"You should be extremely careful if you have to travel through the affected areas," says a notice on the Foreign Affairs Canada website. "Canadians should monitor local news and should be especially vigilant and avoid situations where violence and demonstrations may occur."
Sunday night also brought the first signs of similar unrest spreading beyond France. There were apparent copycat attacks in the Belgian capital of Brussels, where five cars were burned, and in a Berlin neighbourhood, where a few cars were set alight.
The problem largely revolves around Europe's inability to integrate up to 15 million Muslims of immigrant background.
The challenge is heightened by the fact that the main models of integration — the assimilation model practised in France, or the multicultural one in Britain and Holland — seem to have failed.
"Everyone is trying to sell his model of integration as the right one, but none of them are working. All the models are in crisis," said Olivier Roy, a French scholar of European Islam.
The French model pretends to be colour-blind, insisting that even the collection of statistics on ethnic minority groups would offend its cherished principles of "liberté, egalité et fraternité."
And yet, it has allowed French citizens of immigrant background to be segregated and isolated in impoverished apartment complexes on the outskirts of major cities.
In Clichy-sous-Bois, the northeastern suburb of Paris where the unrest first broke out 12 days ago, unemployment is at 40 per cent — four times the national average.
But a week before riots broke out in France, Britain's multicultural model also showed its strains.
The heart of Birmingham, England's second largest city, was engulfed for several days by race riots between young Britons of black and Pakistani backgrounds. Two people were left dead and shops were trashed.
Phillips, whose agency promotes racial equality, questioned Britain's model of multiculturalism, insisting it had created a society that is "sleepwalking to segregation."
"Some districts are on their way to becoming fully fledged ghettoes — black holes into which no one goes without fear and trepidation, and from which no one ever escapes undamaged. The walls are going up around many of our communities," he warned.
With few exceptions, European governments used Turkish and North African immigrant "guest workers" as a source of cheap labour for decades. Little effort was made to integrate them because of neglect and a belief that immigrants would one day return home.
When immigrants instead brought in their families, and when many more arrived clandestinely, right-wing parties grew popular in the 1990s by declaring their countries "full."
The children of these immigrants were born in Europe, but they often live on the margins of society, facing discrimination, and struggling with unemployment and dropout rates much higher than national averages.
"After Sept.11, 2001, the problem with integration became the problem with Islam," Roy said. "We made as if everything depended on Islam when in fact Islam has nothing to do with the social problems these youths face."
In France, a focus on Islam saw the government ban the wearing of headscarves in schools. Yet the centre-right government did nothing to ease job discrimination, Roy said. It even cut the subsidized job program for youths set up by the previous socialist government.
In Holland, where the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh sparked tit-for-tat attacks against mosques and churches that shattered the Dutch self-image of tolerance, the government is proposing a ban on burqas, a covering worn by some Muslim women. "We shouldn't minimize extremism and Muslims must act against it. But that's not the heart of the problem," said Ramadan, the Geneva-based philosopher who lectures across the continent on a tolerant version of European Islam.
"The heart of the problem today is that in France, you have second and third generation young people who say, `I'm a French citizen,' and they get thrown back at them that they're Arabs and Muslims," he added.
"The only time they're fully accepted as French is when they play soccer and score goals, like Zinedine Zidane," said Ramadan, referring to the French-born soccer star of Algerian background.
With files from star wire services _________________ The pussy is free, but the crack cost money (BDP 1989)
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French police suspended in beating
Victim had been taken in for questioning, official explains
Nov. 10, 2005. 12:24 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PARIS — Eight French police officers have been suspended in connection with the beating of a young man in a Paris suburb, a national police spokeswoman said today.
Two of the police officers were suspected of dealing ``unwarranted blows" to the man taken in for questioning in La Courneuve, one of the suburbs where unrest has broken out recently, said national police spokeswoman Catherine Casteran.
In a statement, the Interior Ministry said the six others were believed to have been witnesses to the Nov. 7 incident.
The victim had "superficial lesions" on the forehead and the right foot, the statement said.
La Courneuve is in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, where unrest started two weeks ago, sparked by the accidental deaths of two teenagers. _________________ The pussy is free, but the crack cost money (BDP 1989)
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Nov 10, 12:52 PM EST
Unrest Eases in France; Officers Suspended
By JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press Writer
PARIS (AP) -- Violence in France fell sharply overnight, the police chief said Thursday, one day after the government toughened its stance by imposing emergency measures and ordering deportations of foreigners involved in riots that have raged for two weeks.
In the past two nights, there was a notable decline in the number of car burnings - a barometer of the intensity of the country's worst civil unrest in nearly four decades.
National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said there was a "very sharp drop" in violence overnight. While youths have been battling riot police with rocks and firebombs, "there were practically no clashes with police," he said.
The government ordered a 12-day state of emergency that went into effect Wednesday in an effort to quell the rioting. Also, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said local authorities had been told to deport foreigners convicted so far for their roles.
A French anti-racism group, SOS-Racisme, called the measure illegal. The group's president said he had asked France's highest administrative body, the Council of State, to intervene.
"Nicolas Sarkozy's proposal is illegal," Dominique Sopo said.
SOS-Racisme said it considers Sarkozy's measure a mass deportation, while French law requires that each expulsion be studied on a case-by-case basis. The body has 48 hours to respond.
Police detained 203 people overnight, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. More than 2,000 people have been detained since the violence broke out. A municipal police officer and a firefighter were injured.
Doland reports a government official is emerging as an influence in the violence.
Eight police officers have been suspended for their suspected roles in Monday's beating of a young man in a town near Paris, national police spokeswoman Catherine Casteran said.
Two officers are suspected of dealing "unwarranted blows" to the man in La Courneuve, where unrest has broken out recently, Casteran said. The Interior Ministry said the six others were suspected of witnessing the incident. The victim had "superficial lesions" on his forehead and right foot, it said.
Some cities, including the Riviera resorts of Cannes and Nice, imposed curfews on minors.
Hamon said the rioting, which had spread throughout France, now appeared to be concentrated in certain cities, including Toulouse, Lille, Lyon, Strasbourg and Marseille.
The violence began Oct. 27 among youths in the northeastern Paris region of Seine-Saint-Denis angry over the accidental deaths of two teenagers, one of Mauritanian descent and the other of Tunisian descent. But they grew into a nationwide insurrection marked by extensive arson and clashes with police.
The emergency decree empowers officials to put troublemakers under house arrest, ban or limit the movement of people and vehicles, confiscate weapons and close public spaces where gangs gather. For much of France - including Paris - the state of emergency had no perceptible effect.
But the fact that such extraordinary measures were needed has prompted national soul-searching about France's failure to integrate its African and Muslim minorities - seen as a key reason behind the rioting. Rioters included the French-born children of immigrants from France's former colonies in North and West Africa.
President Jacques Chirac acknowledged problems with a lack of equality.
"Whatever our origins, we are all the children of the republic and we can all expect the same rights," he said Thursday in just his second public comments since the rioting began. "Everyone has a right to respect and equal opportunities."
Arsonists attacked again overnight, the 14th straight day of violence. However, car burnings fell again overnight to 482 from 617 the previous night, Hamon said. The peak in car arsons was overnight between Sunday and Monday, when 1,408 vehicles were torched. The number has steadily dropped every night since then.
This "is an encouraging sign that does not, however, diminish the police effort," Hamon said.
Overnight, vandalism at two power stations caused blackouts in parts of Lyon, France's second-largest city, police said.
Vandals set 11 cars ablaze and rammed a burning car into a primary school in the southern city of Toulouse, damaging its entrance, police said. Another school was set on fire in the eastern city of Belfort.
Violence, albeit on a much smaller scale, spilled across France's borders to Belgium, where rioters burned cars for a fifth straight night. Fifteen vehicles were torched, but the government said the attacks were isolated and could not be compared to the French riots.
France's emergency decree paved the way for possible curfews in Paris, its suburbs and more than 30 other cities and towns nationwide if officials feel they are needed. By Wednesday evening, only a few municipalities and regions imposed them; Paris had not.
In Nice, Cannes and 19 other towns in the Riviera region, minors were forbidden from being outdoors between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. without adult supervision. Certain bars in Nice and another town were ordered closed during those hours for 10 days.
There have been no direct clashes between youths and police in the Riviera but unrest that started in the area on Friday had persisted in some towns for four nights.
Sarkozy, who previously inflamed passions by referring to suburban troublemakers as "scum," said 120 foreigners have been convicted in connection with the violence. He ordered local authorities to expel them.
Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen said French nationals of immigrant backgrounds should be stripped of their French citizenship and sent "back to their country of origin" if they committed crimes.
---
Associated Press reporters John Leicester and Angela Doland contributed to this report. _________________ The pussy is free, but the crack cost money (BDP 1989)
Notre Voie (Abidjan)
Publié sur le web le 7 Novembre 2005
Abdoulaye Villard Sanogo
Depuis une dizaine de nuits, il se passe quelque chose de bizarre en France. Une révolte de jeunes qui a tout l'air d'une rébellion organisée souterrainement.
Ces jeunes gens qui sortent, pour la plupart, des quartiers défavorisés sont en fait des fils d'immigrés auxquels se seraient ajoutés des enfants des Français d'origine mais de basse classe.
Selon des spécialistes interrogés par des confrères, ils sont tous victimes de l'exclusion, de la discrimination. On pourrait ajouter aisément le discours violent et raciste de leurs voisins qu'ils reçoivent tous les jours en plein visage. Si, à Paris, on tente de minimiser cette rébellion qui s'est étendue à bien des villes de l'intérieur du pays en disant qu'"il n'y a pas le feu à la France", la situation inquiète, cependant, plus d'un citoyen français. A commencer par les flics qui sont obligés de ne pas fermer l'oeil les nuits puisque c'est la nuit tombée que les émeutiers déclenchent leur mouvement. Certains d'entre eux, armés, affrontent directement les policiers, brûlent tout sur leur passage, incendient habitations et véhicules. Cela est d'autant sérieux que ces vandales, ces rebelles, fils d'immigrés ne croient plus en rien. Nés de parents qui ne vivent que dans des "greniers", ils n'ont connu que la galère, la misère, l'humiliation. Eternels badauds, mendiants professionnels, ils n'ont pas raté l'occasion exceptionnelle que leur a offerte la mort de deux des leurs le 27 octobre dernier à Clichy-Sous-Bois (Seine-St-Denis) pour interpeller les autorités françaises. Notamment le ministre de l'Intérieur Nicolas Sarkozy, fils d'immigrés (hongrois) comme eux. Selon certains observateurs, ce dernier paie ainsi le prix fort de son entêtement à vouloir briguer la magistrature suprême, alors qu'il n'est qu'un fils d'immigrés. Ce serait donc dans son propre camp que des gens, tapis dans l'ombre, font exécuter cette sale besogne aux jeunes gens. C'est de cette façon qu'ils ont créé l'insécurité du temps où Lionel Jospin était aux affaires ; ce qui a provoqué son élimination dès le premier tour de la présidentielle de 2002. Déjà, des voix s'élèvent d'un peu partout pour demander la démission de Sarkozy. Et l'on se demande bien comment il pourrait s'en sortir si le mouvement ne s'arrête pas maintenant, puisque le bilan partiel fait état de près de 4000 véhicules et plusieurs habitations HLM incendiés. Voilà donc la grande France confrontée à une rébellion de fils d'immigrés qui refusent de discuter avec Sarkozy, mais accepterait volontiers De Villepin. Et si la Côte d'Ivoire leur proposait gracieusement une table ronde à Grand-Bassam, une banlieue abidjanaise ?
pas vraiment d'accord avec ça...
-pourqoi ramener encore et toujours aux grands martyrs des juifs (p-e parce que ceux qui l'ont ecrit...). la peur qu'on avais des juifs etaient d'etre dominé, non?Ce coup ci, ce sont justes des gens de colonies vaincus qui demandent qu'on les aiment ou au moins qu'on leur reconnaissent une humanité. ALors ou est le rapport, pour ces 2 journalistes??les situations sont a l'extremes opposées!!!
-arrogance des politiques francais, ok (ce qu'ils ne les empechent pas de se courber derrieres des communautés ou des interets bien precis...), mais surtout un peu de racisme et beaucoup de demagogie.
Si le texte me parraissaient louable d'efforts au depart, finalement je n'aime pas cette methode de se nombriliser , tout ne se ramene pas à l'histoire de leur communauté.
Un projet de société égalitaire et plus proche du modele republicain n'est pas vendeur...alors on va donner 100millions pour construire p-e des MJC encore... J attend de voir apres les effets d'annonce couvre-feu etc...ce qui va etre réellement etre tenté. J ai entendu le discours de l'autre, finalement il a évoqué ceux dont nous parlions, de semblant d'insertion, et d'appel à l'acceptation; comme quoi, il tate probablement le terrain, pour estimer si la remise en cause du modele actuelle est possible.
...Chirac a évoqué beaucoup de sujet dans sa carriere, combien il en a réalisé je sais pas... . on verra bien quels sont les efforts que les franco-francais sont apres à accepter.
Europe's leading Muslim intellectual on the futility of violence, the need for Islamic feminism, and the social apartheid behind the uprising.
By Erich Follath and Romain Leick
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Nov. 16, 2005 | Tariq Ramadan is considered by many to be a leading philosopher and scholar of Islam. In 2000, Time magazine selected him as one of the most important personalities of the new century. But he's also a figure of controversy, especially in the post-9/11 era. "The reformer to his admirers, Tariq Ramadan is Europe's leading advocate of liberal Islam," the Boston Globe wrote of the 43- year-old intellectual, who was born in Geneva and holds Swiss citizenship. "To his detractors, he's a dangerous theocrat in disguise."
The Department of Homeland Security considers Ramadan to be a radical, and when Notre Dame University in Indiana offered to hire him as a professor of religion and conflict studies, the Bush administration refused to provide Ramadan with a visa to enter the country.
In contrast, Britain's government recently asked Ramadan to join a panel of experts to advise the government on how to deal with radical Islamists. Currently, he is a guest lecturer at St. Anthony's College in Oxford.
Ramadan comes from a family well familiar with political philosophy, activism and conflict: His grandfather, Hassan al-Banna, became a co-founder of Egypt's Society of Muslim Brothers in 1928, and was assassinated in 1949 for his religious agitation. In a recent interview, Ramadan talked about the rioting that has rocked the French suburbs, the deep-rooted problems with the integration of Muslims in Europe, and the need for modernization of Islam.
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You are one of the most influential and one of the most controversial Muslim intellectuals in Europe. Where were you when the French riots broke out?
My Paris office is in one of those banlieues, Saint-Denis, one of the focal points of the unrest. But I must admit that I had no inclination whatsoever to expose myself to rocks and burning projectiles on the street at night.
That sounds a bit indifferent. Many Muslims pay attention to what you say -- they listen to your taped lectures and read your writings. Don't you feel compelled to make an attempt to convince these youths to turn away from violence?
Listen, my position is perfectly clear. There is no doubt that violence is not a solution and that the destruction of buses and cars must end. These crimes must be punished. There is also no doubt that a certain number of youths are descending into pure vandalism and uncontrolled anarchy. Naturally, reestablishing order is of critical importance, especially for the residents of the suburbs, who are bearing the brunt of the violence.
So you truly have no sympathy for the rioters?
Of course I do. But feeling sympathy and searching for explanations isn't the same as believing that the violence is justified. I am firmly convinced that the government's efforts to suppress the riots are inadequate, and that they will remain ineffective until we understand the message behind this outbreak.
And how do you interpret this message?
This revolt has nothing to do with Islam. Islam, as a religion, has been established in France for a long time, and the religious question has been resolved in this country. Islam does not threaten France's future in any way. But it is the social question that poses a true danger to the unity of the republic. Politicians across the political spectrum have underestimated this reality. They stick their heads in the sand and mislead their constituents by attempting to denounce Islam as the source of the problem.
No one disputes the magnitude of social rifts in French society. But it just so happens that these divides run along ethnic and religious lines. Hasn't Islam promoted or even encouraged the formation of social ghettos, the isolation of ethnic communities?
The concepts of unity and equality, which are idealized to the point of excess in France's political rhetoric, are nothing but myths and blatant lies at the social level. The main purpose of the public debates over Islam, integration and immigration is to stir up fear. In a sense, politicians use these debates as ideological strategies, as a way to avoid confronting reality.
What are they attempting to distract from?
The truth is that certain French citizens are treated as second-class citizens, if not the leprous members of the national community. Their children are sent to ghetto schools and taught by inexperienced teachers, they are crammed into inhumane public housing developments, and they are confronted with an essentially closed job market. In short, they live in a bleak, devastated universe. France is disintegrating before our eyes into socioeconomic communities, into territorial and social apartheid. The rich live in their own ghettos. Institutionalized racism is a daily reality.
Isn't Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy aware of this when he calls for targeted assistance for the poor, for dialogue with the Muslims and for relaxing France's rigorous secularism?
Sarkozy is acutely aware of the potential for votes in the suburbs. In crises such as the current one, he shows his true face: contempt and rudeness. If he views entire sections of the population as "riffraff," he shouldn't be surprised if that's the way they end up behaving. He is giving the police free rein in a climate characterized by lack of respect. He is fixated on the 2007 presidential election instead of developing a workable political structure for 2020. Changes will only take place in this country when the residents of the suburbs are treated as fully entitled Frenchmen, as part of the solution, not an expression of the problem.
That's all very well and good -- but doesn't self-criticism have a place alongside criticism? Are Muslim immigrants truly interested in integration, or do they prefer segregation?
The attempt to Islamicize social issues perverts and falsifies political discourse. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in Europe value the fact that they live in democratic, constitutional states, states that guarantee them freedom of conscience and religion. But mutual trust is often shattered, and the result is that fear and racism are deeply affecting France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany. By the time they have reached the second, third or fourth generation, the descendants of immigrants should no longer be stigmatized as ghetto children, as "scum" who are "out of control."
Nevertheless, what makes the integration of Muslims so difficult, compared with earlier immigrants from Poland, Italy, Spain and Portugal?
Two things, I believe. First, this immigration no longer occurs in individual waves; instead, it is a large-scale and continuous immigration. That's the problem of quantity. And then there is the issue of quality. For Muslim immigrants, religion is inseparable from their roots and identity. They feel that transforming themselves from Moroccans or Algerians into Frenchmen makes them bad Muslims. This makes integration more difficult because it apparently forces Muslims to choose between two alternatives: self-abandonment or self-isolation.
But hasn't Islam remained a foreign religion in the Western world, a religion that has yet to enter the modern age?
There are traditionalists, adherents to a literal exegesis of the Koran. I have spent the last 15 years campaigning for a genuinely European Islam, one that requires evolution with respect to time and the environment, as well as a separation of dogmatism and rationality. Islam cannot place itself outside of history.
And where is the boundary between dogma and reason, between being faithful to tradition and being receptive to the modern age?
The dogmatic and, therefore, invulnerable core in Islam is understandably simple: acknowledgement of faith, prayer, charity and fasting. Almost everything else is open to interpretation and modification in space and time.
It does indeed sound clear and simple. Why don't we put it to the test with an example: Is a Muslim permitted to break with his faith?
Not according to the majority opinion among Koran scholars. But the prohibition on apostasy arose at a time when the first Muslim followers of the prophet Mohammed were at war with neighboring tribes. At the time, changing one's faith was tantamount to high treason or desertion. Nowadays this context has changed completely.
In other words, the fight against "infidels" is completely outmoded?
Even the concept of the infidel is misleading, because the infidel is normally someone with a different faith, someone who refuses to recognize the truth of the words of the Koran, as revealed by God. He has every right to do so, as long as he does not question my right to believe in my truth.
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So each individual must become blessed in his own way? What about atheists?
The logic of freedom of religion implies freedom to be an atheist, even though, from a historical perspective, this has not been accepted in the Muslim world...
...and often leads to brutal punishment. How do you feel about equal rights for men and women?
We need an Islamic feminism. Traditional Islam views the women merely as mother, wife, daughter or sister. She has obligations and rights in this capacity. But we must come to a point at which we treat the women as an independent individual with a right to self-determination, as someone who can run her own life without coercion.
Should she be permitted to decide for herself whether to stop wearing the head scarf?
Of course, just as she is permitted to decide whether to wear the head scarf.
But that's an illusion, at least in the real world. Women and girls are not emancipated within their families.
You're right. This is often the case, but emancipation can only come from within; it cannot be dictated by someone else. A law banning the wearing of head scarves changes nothing, except perhaps external appearance. Naturally, Islamic feminism must also include the right to education, to work and the freedom to select one's own husband.
That's all fine and good, but can you explain, then, why you have publicly called for a moratorium on the stoning of women accused of committing adultery -- rather than condemning the practice outright? Some would argue that's hypocritical.
Once again, Islam can only be modernized from within. If I stand there and state that I condemn the practice of stoning, that this punishment is despicable, it changes nothing. My fellow Muslims will say: Brother Tariq, you became a European, a Swiss citizen, so you are no longer one of us. I want to trigger a process of contemplation and thought within the Islamic community. Critiques and attacks from the outside can produce tension. Incidentally, a number of U.S. states have imposed a moratorium on the death penalty, in an effort to buy time to think about the meaning and legitimacy of this penalty.
Is a tendency toward violence inherent to Islam? Isn't it true that many Muslims view jihad as an elementary part of Islamic identity?
Are the Crusades an elementary part of Christianity? No. Every community has the right to self-defense. The Palestinians have the right to fight for their independence from Israel. But this goal does not justify all means. Nothing legitimizes the killing of innocent civilians. The suicide bomber who blows up Israeli children cannot transform himself into a martyr. The Palestinian problem is not an Islamic problem.
Where do you see the process of reform and modernization of Islam, of which you have been a proponent? Has it made any progress anywhere?
In Europe. The impetus must come from European Islam and then influence the Arab world. There is some overlap between the universal values of Western democracy and those of Islam -- the constitutional state operating under the rule of law, the equality of citizens, universal suffrage, the changeover of power, separation of the private and public spheres. These are basic principles, and although they are not spelled out in the Koran, I do not believe that they contradict Islamic tradition.
That is an opinion that many Muslim legal scholars do not share.
An excessively literal interpretation of the Koran ever since the 13th century has led Islam into intellectual calcification and political tension. Remaining faithful to the texts must be distinguished from interpretation of historical and social context. If we begin applying this exegesis and hermeneutics, we will begin to see progress in Islam thought.
Your words are like those of a rationalist, an enlightened theologian with purely intellectual ambitions. But in political reality, in France, Great Britain and the United States, you are suspected of secretly promoting the expansion of Islam and sympathizing with violence.
Oh yes, I am one of the most maligned Muslim intellectuals. Tariq Ramadan, the slippery trickster. They talk about people like me the way they used to talk about the Jews: He is Swiss and European, but his loyalties also lie elsewhere. He says one thing and thinks something else. He is a member of an international organization -- in the past, it was world Jewry, today it's world Islam. I am disparaged as if I were a Muslim Jew.
Could that have something to do with your family history? Your grandfather, Hassan al-Banna, was the founder of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, an organization that envisioned an Islamic fundamentalist transformation.
Thoughts are not genetically inherited traits. I admire my grandfather for his anti-colonial fight against the British. He was very involved in education for girls and women. His five daughters -- my aunts and my mother -- all attended university. And the organization he founded was very progressive for its time. However, I am highly critical of the Brotherhood, with its affected, conspiratorial behavior, its hierarchical structures and its oversimplified slogans.
Were you ever a member of the Brotherhood?
I can assure you that I am no Muslim Brother, despite the fact that my critics have repeatedly launched this rumor in an effort to slander and harm me.
Do you ever think about forming your own party, organization or movement?
No. I am not a politician. I have often been approached in this regard in the past 15 years, but I have always declined these sorts of offers. I view myself as an independent, critical intellectual, as someone who tries to stimulate thought on the left and the right, to encourage intellectual evolution. The Islamic world is obsessed with the notion of strong leaders. This is a mistake. We don't need powerful leaders, but rather unconventional, progressive thinkers with the courage to open our minds.
Translated from German by Christopher Sultan. _________________ The pussy is free, but the crack cost money (BDP 1989)
Au sein du petit cercle des nations occidentales développées, la France est sincèrement un cas à part.
Du citoyen lambda au président Jacques Chirac, s'il existait un championnat du monde de donneurs de leçons, les Français rafleraient assurément toutes les médailles. Voilà donc une société engoncée dans l'élitisme, les situations de rente, la pérennisation d'une sorte de droit de préemption sur le bien commun, une société profondément inégalitaire qui ne cesse de dire au reste du monde comment faire et comment agir alors qu'elle est elle-même incapable de rectification.
Depuis plus de trois semaines, les banlieues dortoirs, pauvres, voire misérables de cette 5e puissance économique du monde sont en feu. Des milliers de jeunes sans présent et sans avenir brûlent des voitures, des édifices publics, sortant du coup une colère inouïe contre le système qui fait d'eux les sacrifiés de la richesse collective. Et qu'entend-on de la bouche des hommes politiques et des leaders d'opinion? « II faut rétablir l'ordre, force doit rester à la loi », etc. La France n'est pas capable de se regarder en face, de se poser de vraies questions, début de la solution aux problèmes réels qu'évoquent ces jeunes.
Nul n'est besoin de rédiger une thèse de doctorat sur le désarroi de la jeunesse des banlieues françaises, essentiellement des Arabes et des Noirs. Il suffit juste d'y faire un tour, de jaser un brin avec ces adolescents pour saisir l'ampleur du cancer qui ronge ce monde devenu parallèle par la force des choses. Ces jeunes ne peuvent pas étudier, ils ne peuvent pas se forcer, ils sont victimes d'un racisme systémique qui ne se couvre même plus des oripeaux de l'égalitarisme naïf. Si vous vous appelez Mohamed Ben Aïssa ou Drissa Traoré, vous avez autant de chance de décrocher un emploi, un logement, un crédit bancaire en France qu'un vendeur de frigo en a de refiler un appareil à un Inuit du grand nord canadien.
Il ne faut surtout pas s'y tromper : ces jeunes ne sont pas les immigrés de fraîche date que les partisans du Front national essaient de stigmatiser. Ils sont les enfants et les petits-enfants de ces Marocains, Algériens, Maliens, Sénégalais que la France a utilisés comme chair à canon pendant la Deuxième Guerre, que la France a fait venir au sortir de cette guerre pour rebâtir des routes, des ponts, des hôpitaux, ramasser les déchets des bourgeois des quartiers riches. Ils ne sont pas des étrangers, ce sont les enfants de cette France ingrate qui n'a pas fait de la reconnaissance du sacrifice de leurs parents un enjeu national. Comme aujourd'hui, toute honte bue, elle paie 16 euros par mois à des anciens combattants africains alors que les descendants des collabos sont devenus des Français comme tous les autres.
Il est particulièrement frustrant, à l'écoute de certaines émissions, d'entendre de pseudo intellectuels français s'en prendre aux Etats-Unis et à la situation des Noirs. C'est une comparaison d'une malhonnêteté intellectuelle rebutante. Certes les Etats-Unis (comme toute société multiculturelle ou non) ont leurs problèmes sociaux, leurs inégalités criardes, mais l'honnêteté nous oblige à reconnaître que nulle part dans le monde, les Noirs n'ont autant réussi socialement en si peu de temps.
Imaginez qu'en 1865, ils étaient encore des esclaves, comme la France en avait également. En 2005, les Noirs sont présents dans toute la vie économique américaine, à des niveaux que personne n'imaginait seulement en 1960, alors que la discrimination raciale existait encore. Il y a 11 généraux noirs dans l'armée ; depuis janvier 2001, les numéros deux du gouvernement sont des Noirs (Colin Powell puis Condeleezza Rice) ; il y en a à la Cour suprême ; ils sont maires de très grandes villes ; gouverneurs d'Etat ; le numéro deux de la Réserve Fédérale (Banque centrale) est Noir, les PDG d'American Express et de Time Warner sont noirs sans compter les officiers de police, les sapeurs-pompiers et les fonctionnaires. Les Arabes en France ? Sont-ils autant « intégrés ».
En Grande-Bretagne, juste de l'autre côté de la Manche, le taux de chômage chez les immigrés n'est que de 10 % alors qu'il dépasse les 40 % en France. Pourquoi ? Parce que ce pays, au nom d'une prétendue égalité républicaine n'a jamais voulu imposer une action affirmative en faveur des minorités. Les élites se sont constamment cachées derrière des chapelets de vœux pieux, attendant que, d'un coup de baguette magique, les problèmes trouvent une solution.
Est-il normal qu'en France, en 2005, des universitaires, des chercheurs, des personnes extrêmement compétentes soient condamnés à vie à la marginalité parce qu'au lieu de s'appeler Benoît Dupont, ils sont plutôt Mohamed Ben Larbi ? Et pourtant, c'est cela la seule et unique vérité qui explique ces révoltes réelles. L'astro-physicien malien Cheick Modibo Diarra l'a vite compris : s'il était resté en France au lieu de filer aux States, il serait chauffeur de taxi à Orly aujourd'hui.
Les ministres de l'Intérieur se succèdent, les solutions cosmétiques se suivent, seuls ne changent pas les qualificatifs : Pour Jean-Pierre Chevènement, il s'agissait de « sauvageons », pour Sarkozy, ce sont des « voyous », de la « canaille ». Cela apaise les bons Français et nourrit la haine de la clientèle à Jean-Marie Le Pen. Mais Sarkozy oublie seulement une chose : avec ses cheveux frisés et son ascendance hongroise, il aurait juste pu porter le mauvais prénom et aujourd'hui, au lieu de trôner fièrement à la place Beauvau, il serait en train de cirer les pompes des riches du 13e arrondissement.
Pourrait-il comprendre la chance qu'il a eue au lieu de flatter le racisme primaire qui gangrène une partie de cette société ? Car, malgré tout, il y a des Français qui ont honte de ce système, qui souhaitent d'autres politiques. Mais on les appelle les « idéalistes ». On les regroupe dans quelques associations bidon, on leur refile quelques subventions... jusqu'à la prochaine révolte.
Rédacteur(s): Ousmane Sow (journaliste, Montréal)
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,non sérieusement ceux qui ont CNN,regarder!Là dernière fois que j'ai reagrdé les news c'était il y a un 2h.A 17h(heure de Guyane) ils ont interview un sénateur de L'Ump qui était aigrit que les américains se délectent de ce qui se passe en france(parce qu'ils prennent bien leurs revanches 
pas vraiment d'accord avec ça...
. on verra bien quels sont les efforts que les franco-francais sont apres à accepter.
