Rioting spreads into French rebellion

After nearly two weeks of rioting spread to over 300 cities and towns throughout France, a state of emergency was declared on Nov. 8 but failed to prevent another night of rioting as youths defiantly torched more than 600 vehicles in protest against police brutality, racism and unemployment. The French government's emergency measure was the toughest response to date to rioting in neglected, high-immigration suburbs which has left more than 6,000 cars burned, dozens of policemen injured, and one civilian dead. Dozens of schools, community centers and shops have been wrecked, and 1,830 people have been arrested so far. The government decree, enacted in 1955 to suppress riots in Algeria, a French colony at the time, empowers regional authorities to declare curfews, order house searches, prohibit public assembly and put people under house arrest. The extraordinary 12-day state of emergency covers Paris, its suburbs and more than 30 other French cities from the Mediterranean to the border with Germany and to Rouen in the north–an indication of how widespread arson, riots and other unrest have become. President Jacques Chirac announced the measures after a crisis meeting of his Cabinet on Nov. 8. 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 government's announcement came after the unrest had blossomed into a nationwide insurrection with reports of rioters seeking out combat with police forces and copycat riots appearing in neighboring European countries. On the night the government's clampdown was announced in Toulouse, rioters and police exchanged Molotov cocktails and tear gas canisters during a visit by France's interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose attitude towards the violence has been blamed for inflaming tensions. In southeastern France, Lyon's entire public transport network was shut down after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a train station. In Arras, in northern France, a fire ripped through a shopping center. In the mountainous eastern Jura region, nine buses were set on fire. Another bus exploded when it was firebombed in Bassens, close to Bordeaux. Meanwhile, ten cars and a motor scooter were set ablaze overnight in the German cities of Berlin and Cologne. In neighboring Belgium, a dozen cars were set alight. Just a few days before, rioters shot and injured 10 police officers in Grigny, two seriously, when security forces confronted 200 stone-throwers. Youths also seized a bus in Saint-Etienne, in southern France, ordered passengers off, and torched the vehicle. In Rouen, in the north, rioters pushed a burning car against a police building. Cars were also burned in Nantes, Rennes and Orleans. A national police spokesman said a total of 2,200 cars were burned around the country on Nov. 4 and 5, including previously untouched cities or towns like Avignon in the south and Evreux in Normandy. Fifty cars, a post office, two schools and a shopping center were destroyed in Evreux. In Torcy, east of the capital, rioters set fire to a police station, which was gutted. The rioting began on Oct. 27 after the fear of harassment led two teenage boys from the northern suburbs of Paris to leap into a power substation while trying to dodge police at a checkpoint, according to their parents. The deaths of the youths, who were electrocuted, ignited the unrest as a flashpoint for the frustrations of second and third generation African immigrants nationwide. Opponents of the emergency security measures denounced them as dangerously provocative. Le Monde, the leading daily newspaper in France, was among the move's critics. "Exhuming a 1955 law sends to the youth of the suburbs a message of astonishing brutality: that after 50 years France intends to treat them exactly as it did their grandparents," it said. The largest teachers' union said that President Jacques Chirac's decision would be seen as a "message of war" to disaffected youths who already see the riot police as an army sent to humiliate them. The growing violence is forcing France to confront long-simmering anger in its suburbs, where many Africans and their French-born children live on society's margins, struggling with high unemployment, racial discrimination and despair. While promising to crack down on the rioting, the French government was also forced to announce a series of concessionary measures to ease access to the job market and stamp out racial discrimination. Dominique de Villepin, the Prime Minister, announced a multimillion-dollar package of measures to ease the plight of the descendants of the immigrants from the 1950s and 1960s whose anger has exploded onto the streets. It includes the creation of a national anti-discrimination agency and 20,000 jobs with local government bodies for estate dwellers. The Prime Minister told parliament: "We must be clear–the Republic is at a moment of truth. What is in question is the effectiveness of our model of integration." De Villepin said that racial discrimination was a daily fact of life, as reflected in the preference given to job-seekers with French-sounding names. Though multiethnic, the majority of the population in the rioting suburbs are descended from Arab and African immigrants and unemployment rates often run as high as 40 percent. There are many reasons for the rioting. "Because we hate, because we're mad, because we've had it up to here," said Rachid. "Look around you. This place is shit, it's a dump. We have nothing here. There's nothing for us." Sylla, 18, has a more specific target for his rage. "Les keufs, man, the cops. They're Sarkozy's and Sarkozy must go. Every car that goes up, that's one more message for him." "We are not going to stop until Sarkozy resigns," said 17-year-old HB. For five nights in a row, HB and his friends had been battling with riot police on the Mille-Mille housing estate. They have burned cars, businesses and a school, but really, they want Sarkozy. "We are not germs," says HB, who was born in France of Algerian parents. "He said he wants to clean us up. He called us louts. He provoked us on television. He should have said sorry for showing us disrespect, but now it is too late." The political left has demanded interior minister Sarkozy resign, accused of inflaming passions by calling troublemakers "yobs" and "scum." Many rioters say they are determined to make Sarkozy pay for his insults. The interior minister's forces, of which there are some 9,500 on duty around the country, are loathed. One of Sarkozy's first measures as minister of the interior was to disband a special police unit created by the former Socialist government in 1997 to maintain close contact with youth organizations to prevent any outbreak of violence. "The duty of police officers is to chase criminals, not to play football with them," Sarkozy said at the time. Sarkozy replaced the police on the beat with officers whose aggressive tactics have won almost universal scorn in the projects and created an air of hostility that has precipitated the current violence. "They harass you, they hassle you, they insult you the whole time, ID checks now, scooter checks next. They call you nigger names," said Karim, 17. "One said [to me]: 'Go back home, Arab. Screw your race.'" "Cars make good barricades and they burn nicely, and the cameras like them," explained HB, who is training to be a chef in college. "How else are we going to get our message across to Sarkozy? It is not as if people like us can just turn up at his office." Sylla summed it up. "We burn because it's the only way to make ourselves heard, because it's solidarity with the rest of the non-citizens in this country, with this whole underclass," he said. "We're sinking in shit, and France is standing on our heads. One way or another we're heading for prison. It might as well be for actually doing something."