Over at Normblog, “Sophie Masson has been defending the French model against its detractors”:http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2005/11/riots_in_france.html , pointing out the France has successfully assimilated generations of Portuguese and Italian immigrants and turned them into French men and women. The funny thing is, that, leaving aside a bit of Napoleonic rambling around Italy in the 1790s, France never colonized Italy and Portugal. Nor did it fight a bitter war in Italy and Portugal as recently as the 1960s. Nor did it employ methods including massacre and torture against Italians and Portuguese in the recent past. Moreover those recent events have, as far as possible, been brushed under the carpet and France recently passed a law making schools teach the allegedly positive aspects of its colonial regimes in North Africa. Whilst the Algerian War was the subject of one of the greatest films ever made, French cinema (to mention just one popular cultural medium) has not faced up to the Algerian war in the way the Hollywood has addressed the American experience in Vietnam. I don’t assert that there is some direct causal connection between the Algerian war and the recent riots, but one cannot think seriously about the situation of the banlieue without noticing the unmentionable facts and silences. There has been no Truth and Reconciliation Commission for France, but until these wounds are acknowledged and examined, those of North African origin cannot be treated as just another immigrant group — like the Italians and Portuguese — they are not.
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Scott Martens 11.09.05 at 10:06 am
France never divided the Italians or Portuguese into évolués and non-évolués. That’s what makes so much of the current talk about integration in France seem so patronising. They were divided into the integrated and the non-integrated back when Algeria was a part of France; and the current rhetoric suggests that Algerian independence didn’t change that.
Blake 11.09.05 at 10:09 am
That reminds me of when Bill O’Reilly compared he his father’s succeeding in America despite being Irish with the inequalities faced by African Americans in the US. Amazing.
Beyond the issue of colonialism, there are also issues of race, religion, and class, that Italians and Portuguese do not face in France.
Thanks for the great site.
Hugo 11.09.05 at 10:28 am
Chris, I’m guessing that you’ve never actually lived in France. If you had, you’d realise that your notion that the Algerian war has somehow been “brushed under the carpet” is woefully out of date. In the past decade at least, there have been countless media debates, TV programmes, books, academic studies and newspaper feature spreads on the war (just take two minutes to peruse lemonde.fr or amazon.fr). If there have been fewer movies, it might be more to do with the huge expense of shooting war epics in foreign climes for which typically only Hollywood has the financial firepower. That said, there have been many movies with the Algerian war as some sort of background. I think it would be impossible to be a reasonably educated person living in France today without knowing quite a bit about the war with its torture and atrocities. In fact, the most common epithet for it is “la sale guerre”, which tells you something about the way it is considered.
The latest media frenzy about torture during the war dates back to only 2001, when General Aussaresses published a book admitting he’d been complicit in torturing prisoners. The book caused a huge outcry and the general was charged and found guilty of “apologie de la torture”, and was later stripped of his legion d’honneur by Chirac. You’d have had to have had your head in the sand for years not to have noticed all of this.
Ginger Yellow 11.09.05 at 10:35 am
Of course, the film you refer to was directed by an Italian.
Robin 11.09.05 at 10:36 am
It took France and the French media 30 years(!) to even really mention the secret massacre of 1961. The PCF/CGT played basically a xenophobic game in the 1970s. Hell, you couldn’t even be a works council representative without being a French citizen into the 1980s. The French don’t really practice their model, or at least don’t seem to have for decades.
Some of the anti-semitic views were stunning. Really stunning. (They should have a truth commission for the Holocaust too.)
I know that France has had more Jewish heads of government that the US, etc. And much of it is socially a beacon, but other segments of it–not backwater segments–are sort of terrifying.
The list could go on, as I’m sure it could for us here in the US.
But there were some different things about it. While doing my field work in Paris, (phenotypically, I’m a dark Asiatic type, though my Americanness made me exotic for the French it seemed) I once got the comment, in all earnestness and without hostility, “I like you, I like your type, but I like you in your own homes.” And he didn’t mean the States.
a 11.09.05 at 10:49 am
And how many countries have come to terms with their past? Look at what they do, not what they say. The U.S. has arguably repeated its mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq; at least the French learned from their colonial mistakes. Look at New Orleans, etc. Not many lessons learned about mistreatment of blacks there.
Every country has dirty linen; the French are no exception. But this need to bash France, even from the left – apparently to show the good old boys on the right that the commentator has an open mind – is becoming laughable.
With that said, I disagree with Hugo about the “apologie de la torture.” As I remember it this episode, the reaction was a bit like the one of Republican Senators to the news of American gulags – find the leaker. That is, again as I remember it, the overriding reaction was that the good officer should have kept his mouth shut and not revived old wounds, and in breaking the silence deserved punishment.
paul 11.09.05 at 10:56 am
France recently passed a law making schools teach the allegedly positive aspects of its colonial regimes in North Africa.
I thought that now they are only requiring that when covering this history, the teacher must mention that the idea that there were any negative aspects is just a theory.
Pablo Stafforini 11.09.05 at 11:01 am
Whilst the Algerian War was the subject of one of the greatest films ever made, French cinema (to mention just one popular cultural medium) has not faced up to the Algerian war in the way the Hollywood has addressed the American experience in Vietnam.
Film culture aside, in the US the more educated you are the greater the likelihood that you think that the Vietnam was not “fundamentally wrong and immoral”, but just “a mistake”. And if you ask an average American about the total Vietnamese casualties in the war, chances are they’ll give you a figure of 100,000. The fact that the actual death toll is about 20 times higher doesn’t really matter, however, because as peace-loving Jimmy Carter once said, “the destruction was mutual”. How’s that for coming to terms with one’s recent crimes?
Hektor Bim 11.09.05 at 11:03 am
a,
Why should we defend the French? Why are they above reproach? Just because idiots attack them does not mean we should defend them.
I don’t think we can safely say that the French learned from their colonial mistakes. Their actions in Rwanda are notorious, and their actions in the Ivory Coast are not much better. They weren’t terrific in the Balkans either. They clearly still think of “Francophone” Africa as their place, and are willing to do whatever it takes (within the French budget) to maintain their dominant position there.
With the erosion of French military might relative to their ex-colonies, of course they were forced to rein in their ambitions. I don’t really see much evidence that France supports democracy and the rule of law in its ex-colonies, particularly if the application of these principles would threaten French interests there.
Hektor Bim 11.09.05 at 11:05 am
a,
There is a good example of a country coming to terms with its past. Germany – the specific term is actually Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung – literally “overcoming the past”. And the process continues there I think.
Hektor Bim 11.09.05 at 11:07 am
Pablo,
Do you have equivalent polls for the French attitudes to Algeria? Do you think French citizens understand how many Algerians died?
Hektor Bim 11.09.05 at 11:07 am
Pablo,
How many Vietnamese died during the French occupation of Vietnam?
Pierre Azoulay 11.09.05 at 11:09 am
The idea that the algerian independence war is swept under the carpet in France is just loopy. In 1987-1988 — my last year of high school, I certainly remember being taught about the war, the setif riots of 1945, torture by the army, etc. I also remember being taught about the FLN, its tactics, and the way it eliminated all opposition in pure stalinian fashion. Finally, I was told about the massacre of the “harkis”…Chris needs to get its facts straight.
a 11.09.05 at 11:16 am
“There is a good example of a country coming to terms with its past. [Germany]” Well I am a bit speechless. Given the enormity of German crimes, I can’t really say that I agree. Sure they did better than Japan, or Russia, but I would say that, on a ratio basis, the U.S. has come to terms with slavery about as well as Germans have come to terms with the Holocoust.
“Why should we defend the French? Why are they above reproach?” I’m not asking you to defend them, just don’t attack, in this insanely irrational way, as CT does, in order to gain street cred with the bloggers on the right.
yabonn 11.09.05 at 11:23 am
There, is that big pile under the carpet. There, are the riots. The two exist, but the one doesn’t necessarily explain well the other, as you mention.
And, yes, people are, for quite some years now, in the process of looking under that carpet.
… immigrants and turned them into French men and women
This is surely an reasonable description of the process, from, say, the us or uk point of view. In france i’d say the process is now seen at aiming (and sometimes failing) at something closer to “whatever you are in private, you’re M. Dupond for the society”. It may amount to the same thing at the end, but at least, French are not consciously jacobino-borgs. These days.
By the way, do riots in other countries spell too the doom of said other countries’ “model”, or do they transform, under these kinder climates, into social problems?
Louis Proyect 11.09.05 at 11:31 am
It should be understood that some of the key leaders of the anti-FLN movement in Algeria were of Italian, Maltese or other non-French nationalities. Also, being stripped of legion d’honneur hardly constitutes retribution for torture and murder.
Matt 11.09.05 at 11:32 am
a-
Do you really think Chris (or other CTers) are interested in having “street cred” w/ right-wing bloggers? It seems pretty unlikely to me. I’d guess that Chris honestly believes this is a good point. That seems plausible to me, though I don’t know enough about it to have a clear opinion. But, there seems no good reason to question his motives, as opposed to his arguments.
saurabh 11.09.05 at 11:36 am
a – Why is it insanely irrational to attack France, or what’s insanely irrational about the way chris does it above? Are you asserting French society is guiltless towards its minority? Why are they above reproach?
If your implication is that we should only speak critically about official Left enemies like George W. Bush, that’s cracked. Hopefully the correct standard of behavior should be devotion to principle, not to some notion of political expedience.
a 11.09.05 at 11:39 am
Matt – I think the “street cred” remark is an exaggeration, but this is the second time that he seems to be picking on the French, in order to pick on the French. Perhaps it is just the kneejerk anti-French attitude in some Anglo-Saxons, exemplified by the Sun and the American right. For whatever reason, I think it is wrong-headed.
Uncle Kvetch 11.09.05 at 11:40 am
By the way, do riots in other countries spell too the doom of said other countries’ “modelâ€, or do they transform, under these kinder climates, into social problems?
I have to second that. Not to minimize the importance of the past week in France, but if there’s another spate of racial unrest in Bradford, will we be treated to triple-digit comment threads about the “failure of the British model”?
And I have to say that I don’t think the colonial experience really has much bearing on the present situation, if any. It’s been mentioned that there are “white” French youths, and immigrants from Eastern Europe, mixed in with the Arab- and African-descended youths involved in the rioting.
In hindsight, it’s easy to think of the assimilation of previous waves of immigrants into France as relatively unproblematic, but I think that’s a little myopic. It’s pretty easy to find evidence of many French folk claiming that, at the time they were immigrating in large numbers, the Belgians, the Poles, the Italians, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese were all “unassimilable” into French society in some fashion.
Stephen 11.09.05 at 11:42 am
I really don’t see the point of this argument.
Presumably Algerian rioters (or their parents) were at one time sufficiently sanguine about France to leave Algeria and go live there.
a 11.09.05 at 11:46 am
Sarabh: After the London bombings, suppose I got up on my soapbox and begin to say, “Well this shows what is wrong with British society and how it has failed its immigrants, some of whom obviously feel dispossessed.” If you were British, then you would feel a tad pissed off, no? Why are the London bombers “evil” but the French riots occasion to lecture France on its race relations?
Hugo 11.09.05 at 11:49 am
In hindsight, it’s easy to think of the assimilation of previous waves of immigrants into France as relatively unproblematic, but I think that’s a little myopic
A good point. There were lots of anti-Italian riots in the pre-war period. There was even a massacre of Italian immigrants at Aigues-Mortes in 1893.
Zilch 11.09.05 at 12:34 pm
Chris,
relating the current riots to what happened in Algeria during the dirty war is like relating the 1992 LA riots to the assassination of Martin Luther King.
People are not rioting today because of some sense of prejudice, they’re rioting because thanks to decades of socialistic policy, they’ve been totally shut out of the country they live in. They do not take part in the economy, they’ve developped an alternative “victim” culture, they think the country is biased against them (and in a way, they’re right, on that, though not in the way they think)
if you want a profile of the average rioter, watch this
They have nothing, know nothing, and virtually have no future, that’s why they’re burning cars today. not beacuase of what the French might have done 50 years ago.
A,
“After the London bombings, suppose I got up on my soapbox and begin to say, “Well this shows what is wrong with British society and how it has failed its immigrants, some of whom obviously feel dispossessed.—
maybe, but the comparison would be totally irrelevant. The London bombers came from well integrated,lower middle class families.
The only comparison you could make would be with what happened recently in Bradford, though in terms of scope, consequences or signification, these couldn’t be more different.
The (white) French are no more racist than your average European, but they have an economic system that creates 2 classes:
-the well integrated who can benefit from globalisation, have good jobs, live a comfortable life.
-the rest, who are condemned to small jobs, little opportunities and have little hope.
The only solution is to reform the educational system and the economy.
Donald Johnson 11.09.05 at 1:03 pm
I just heard about the 1961 massacre in the last day or so. Does Alistair Horne mention it in his book on the Algerian War? I read that, or the late 1970’s edition, but don’t remember if he said anything about the massacre.
jayann 11.09.05 at 1:12 pm
Presumably Algerian rioters (or their parents) were at one time sufficiently sanguine about France to leave Algeria and go live there.
Some were caught between the French occupiers and the Algerian resistance and, having given information after being tortured, fled Algeria for safety. (I only know at first-hand of one such family — my information is direct — I assume there were others.)
Pablo Stafforini 11.09.05 at 1:34 pm
Do you have equivalent polls for the French attitudes to Algeria? Do you think French citizens understand how many Algerians died?
I never wanted to suggest that the French were more aware. I was just challenging what seemed to me a misleading contrast in Chris original post.
Sebastian holsclaw 11.09.05 at 1:48 pm
“Presumably Algerian rioters (or their parents) were at one time sufficiently sanguine about France to leave Algeria and go live there.”
If the riots have much to do with Algeria, the “or their parents” phrase almost certainly explains the apparent contradiction you point out in the rest of the sentence.
a 11.09.05 at 1:50 pm
Zilch, try this:
“The (white) British are no more racist than your average European, but they have an economic system that creates 2 classes:
-the well integrated who can benefit from globalisation, have good jobs, live a comfortable life.
-the rest, who are condemned to small jobs, little opportunities and have little hope.
The only solution is to reform the educational system and the economy.”
Or replace “British” with “American,” or “German”, or “Japanese”, or “Chinese”.
Zilch 11.09.05 at 2:08 pm
A,
yes i could do this, except that it just wouldn’t work the same way.
Britain has a system which makes it possible for immigrants, or the children of immigrants to integrate much better than in France for instance.
compare the number of coloured people working in the city of London and the number working in La defense.
American… they take in about a million immigrant each year, they all integrate fairly well.
Germany… well currently it is facing similar difficulties to France.
Japanese… no one is shut out, Unemployment is fairly low, the trend we see with people taking small jobs has more to do with a cultural problem (youth breaking from tradition) than an economic one.
Chinese.. c’mon, a communist country, actually, yeah, in a way it’s kinda like France.
Silent E 11.09.05 at 2:35 pm
I thought Belle said it better: looks like run-of-the-mill poor people getting angry about being poor.
What’s interesting about Masson’s blog post is that she goes on for so long, even pointing out the differences between Southern European and North African assimilation success for groups of the same age and with the same educational background (stunning vs. nil), and highlights the massive disparities in unemployment – and yet she does not discuss the origins of this unemployment crisis! Which is, of course, what the criticism of the “French model” is all about – the absurdly high unemployment rates!
abb1 11.09.05 at 2:36 pm
I am sure the French aren’t any more racist than, say, Americans, but they sure don’t have any concept of ‘political correctness’. I used to feel that PC is a bad idea, but turns out no PC is even worse.
a 11.09.05 at 2:46 pm
Zilch: Sure it does. Those “coloured” people working in the city of London are in your category 1; they’re part of the global workforce. And you should of course realize that seeing all those “coloured” people in the City doesn’t imply anything about how many category 2s there are. For that you have to visit the British ghettoes.
For America, think black people.
By the way, I actually work in La Defense. Let’s see, I can count Zinnneb, Selllim, Saddddyo among my immediate colleagues (names mispelled to prevent googling).
Jussi 11.09.05 at 2:58 pm
A,
“There is a good example of a country coming to terms with its past. [Germany]†Well I am a bit speechless. Given the enormity of German crimes, I can’t really say that I agree.”
I don’t understand this. How does the enormity of German crimes mean it hasn’t come to terms with its past. Or if you meant something different, in what way has Germany not come to terms with its past?
Ian 11.09.05 at 3:26 pm
Perhaps because Chris Bertram didn’t say “Read the whole thing”, nobody seems to have looked at the Sophie Masson piece. She claims that the French assimilationist model worked back in the 50s and 60s (“halcyon years for France, with lots of work including for unskilled workers”), but that contemporary France “has slowly ossified into its default mode of hierarchy” as employment opportunities have turned sour. This is somewhat more nuanced than Chris’s version that she’s defending the French model against its detractors. Likewise, she doesn’t imply “European immigrants good, Muslim immigrants bad” (and no, Chris doesn’t say she implies this, but…). She maintains, and cites some figures, that there’s a generational problem for North Africans: that the assimilationist approach did work to some extent for their first generation of post-war migrants, but it’s since failed. And she suggests some contributing factors. Whether or not she should have included the Algerian war IS an issue, and some of the factors she suggests might have the war’s shadow in the background. So why not address the points she raised as well as the points she didn’t?
a 11.09.05 at 3:34 pm
jussi – I don’t think it is possible to “come to terms” with the Holocaust, given its enormity.
Giovanni Ribisi 11.09.05 at 3:43 pm
What are you talking about, France never colonized Italy? To this day vast tracts of Italian soil and population remain under French rule – Nizza and Corsica.
Jussi 11.09.05 at 4:31 pm
A,
“I don’t think it is possible to “come to terms†with the Holocaust, given its enormity”
I think “coming to terms” means accepting something in the past was wrong, and adjusting behaviour and thought accordingly.
But to ask anyway, because it must be asked, in what way do you think Germans have not adjusted, or “come to terms”?
Are you aware of how they financed Israel?
gkurtz 11.09.05 at 4:45 pm
Ian hits it: Masson’s post is considerably more nuanced than “France is good!”. Masson’s defense of the French model (to the extent that that’s what she’s doing) is a defense of the idea that movement toward economic equality (or at least inclusion) is a prerequisite for assimilationist republicanism. She says that the French model worked best in the 50s and 60s: “halcyon years for France, with lots of work, including for unskilled workers, and a palpable sense of progress and hope.” I’m not convinced (and I don’t get the impression that Masson is either) that this is *all* that would be required for the French model of assimilation to work. But the more interesting conversation here might be one about how far economic equality (or inclusion) does and doesn’t get you.
a 11.09.05 at 4:45 pm
“I think “coming to terms†means…” Obviously I take it to mean more than that; “coming to terms” should take in understanding of the events.
I fear for this discussion not that Israel has been introduced, so I’ll end it here.
Chris Bertram 11.09.05 at 5:23 pm
Not sure why my motives were questioned above, nor was I aware that this is my second post bashing the French (?). And, Hugo, I have lived in France as it happens.
I stand by my point that the North Africans are not just another minority and that the Algerian war and its aftermath are part of the explanation for that. I could draw parallels by mentioning the historical reasons why Native Americans and Blacks aren’t “just another” minority in the US. But probably someone would take me to task for bashing the US to appease someone.
lacordaire 11.09.05 at 5:49 pm
OK, we all agree it’s not religion – so far, and hopefully not before a couple of years.
It’s economy/class/unemployment.
But what people do not say enough, it is also, in a way, a race problem.
Let me say it, I do no PC, I’m european.
Premise: I didn’t live in France the last ten years, so I may be wrong. But my feeling (some visits, TV interviews and reports, news,…) is the following.
These days, there are cités I wouldn’t venture in at the evening, and the reason is … I’m white.
Because as I am/look, and at the latest when I have to open my mouth, I would be recognized as a “francais”. That means, the guy who would win hand on in any school exam, job contest, whatever. The anger is directed against me.
However, if I was white and had grown in a cite, -as long as not the turf next door- I could think of it, and would rely on my instinct/mouthwork for dealing with troublemakers. If cité-grown and black, no problem.
And if I was Black/beur looking, but with my education/dress code, I should go through trouble free, even if I would avoid to start a discussion for fear of revealing myself.
Race matters, and made and will make for a while of the integration problem a “baton merdeux” to handle. Now that ethnic ghettos have come up, how can you persuade a young living in it that he has a chance: the one around him struggling are black/beur, so in his logic he inferes that they struggle because they are black/beur. We can discuss, but definitely not a virtuous circle.
On the other side, a vicious circle too. Suppose a salesman or a policeman wanting to give a kid a sermon , who who has to hear that he does it because he is a racist -aside of being or not to the point, it’s quite the standard rhethoric for explaining any problem away by street youngs, and can leads easily to quite unnerving arguments- and not because the kid stole a pair of sneakers. I can guess he is not pleased at it, and few people are wise philosophs who will reach next time to the ethnic looking guy for the sake of the french integration model.
When the immigrant were portuguese or italian and white looking, there was a chance at least to start some interaction at every new encounter, instead of having the fence going up at the first sight.
As every marketing course says, one bad experience outbalances easily a hundred good experiences. Perception matters (skin screened ID- control anyone?).
So I suspect that at the very least, integration of the rioting youth will take more time that for the preceding waves of immigrant. Short me: I’m convinced that skin is much more a problem than religion, at least in France.
I don’t know for sure which new policy in France could increase the good experiences and limit the bad ones. How do you eradicate xenophoby in the mankind? Progress exist, race superiority has lost supporters, but they are slow.
And what can concretely help?
introduce PCness in France (I shudder;-)? positive discrimination? finally, intimely realize that “foreigners” won’t go away, and everyone would be better to adapt? Zero tolerance policy? bye-bye to laicity? distribute equally public housing between cities and between downtown and banlieue?
By the way, is someone aware of a racially mixed society (let say, more than10-20% minority), fully and really integrated? I mean, power, profession, money and social class evenly distributed through the ethnic lines.
Maybe Taiwan comes in mind, but I am not even sure, maybe it’s just because I don’t know it enough…
RedWolf 11.09.05 at 6:26 pm
Italian and Portuguese are white and Christians. Arabs, North African included, are Muslims and, I don’t know why, are considered and feel non white. This and lack of jobs is probably enough to explain the story. Almost all other arguments seem to me to be, at least, of lesser significance.
thibaud 11.09.05 at 10:09 pm
A couple of points: First, at least a third of the African kids in the citesare of sub-saharan, not north african, origin. The Algerian war is of no relevance to these kids, who figure just as prominently among hte unemployed, the rappers and the car torchers as do the beurs.
Second, the great gap between the experience of the first-generation african immigrants of the 1950s and 1960s and that of their grandchildren today has to do with the disappearance of the unskilled factory work that was so abundant during the early phases of France’s trente glorieuses due to foreign competition and technological and economic change. The first generation were grateful to have work at all, and had strong memories of the hellholes they left behind. The current generation has no economic opportunities to speak of, but also has no memory or real awareness of the even worse situation in the ir grandparents’ homelands.
Third, there is no space in French culture or under the French conception of citizenship for “twoness”, the notion that one can be proud of one’s non-French or “ethnic” heritage while still being loyal to the Republique.
All of the above have left the african kids in the projects in an impossible position, lost between two cultures, neither of which offers them anything attractive, with an unemployment rate of ~40% and little to do about it.
Marc Mulholland 11.10.05 at 8:50 am
Having spent too much time analysing polite justifications for discrimination in Northern Ireland when dominated by Unionism, this bit from Sophie Masson rang a very familar and unwelcome bell:
“Then there’s the rise in an aggressive Islamic consciousness in the ghettos, which … is not only a religious but a political attitude. The truculence this combination produces in some highly vocal members of the community is hardly attractive to private-sector employers … the government, know[s] it can’t possibly … force the hand of private-sector employers”.
Unionism made exactly the same argument, in the same insinuating manner. Lord Brookeborough:
“A man’s religion is entirely his own affair. The point is, there are loyalists and disloyalists.”
A Young Unionist (who bizarrely later became a Civil Rights leader):
“employers could not be blamed if they preferred to employ people with Unionist affiliations on the grounds that they received more loyal support from them.”
It stank then, and it stinks now. The pseudo-‘commonsense’ assertion that the state “can’t possibly … force the hand of private-sector employers” is balderdash. The state can force the private emploers’ hand, thank goodness. It’s called fair employment legislation, and I know of a good many people who have cause to be grateful for it.
mathieu 11.10.05 at 9:11 am
Well, I’ll try to join in again. Since last time I commented there was a delay in the appearance time of my post maybe I got lost in the mix. Or maybe the conversation had veered off. Maybe it’s dead now too. Anyhoo seeing as you’re back in the cites, I’ll just trying posting it again.
So as to not be a complete sulk I will add something first about the “gender difference” between (North) African culture and the so-called Republican model, ie the respective weight in the family of men and women. Traditional male “Little Kings” whom their mothers or elder sisters are not expected to control logically have a lot to lose by becoming just another Joe Blow Citizen. Which also explains why female North Africans are much more keen to join the French model either through education or marriage.
OK now back to the future: There is a form of historical retribution at work here. The Gaullist party of Chirac, Villepin and Sarkozy built its wealth on corrupt practices such as attributing building contracts in exchange for kickbacks. This started when De Gaulle was in power in the sixties and the gentrification of inner cities combined with the arrival of cheap immigrant labour led to the construction of the dismal blocks of estates which encircle all major French cities.
In terms of the population of these outlying working-class areas, it’s worth noting that the dominant force there in the sixties and early seventies was the (Stalinist) French communist party. So the question is: why did then-president Giscard d’Estaing, after the oil shock of 1973 and the ensuing economic downturn, enable the “regroupement familial†(allowing the families of the mostly male Algerians-Tunisians-Morrocans to join them in France), instead of facilitating their return to their countries of origin?
Some commentators (see Alain Soral for example) suggest that this could have been a machiavellian ploy to shatter the unity of the relatively multicultural (Italian, Portuguese, and don’t forget other Catholics like the Polish, etc.) “banlieues rouges†by bringing radically different peoples with very little in common with the others and – most important – in the context of globalisation and mechanisation – ie no job prospects for the less-well trained “truly disadvantaged†underclass.
It’s also worth noting that the State Left (if Mitterrand and his Socialists can be called that) bear some responsibility with their cynical use of the National Front bogeyman since the mid-eighties to embarrass and divide the traditional right; and with their dubbing “racist†anyone who argues that the French Republic cannot do its secondary job of integration through education (besides its primary one of reproducing the elite) if it also makes room for repugnant sexist traditions. I don’t mean wearing a headscarf but rather the dominant position of males in North African societies and attendant practices such as arranged / forced marriages. I also don’t mean to say that French society isn’t racist, just that there have been effective limitations imposed on public discourse which ultimately helped no-one, except perhaps the Far-right’s demonisation of immigrants.
yabonn 11.10.05 at 9:25 am
Third, there is no space in French culture or under the French conception of citizenship for “twonessâ€, the notion that one can be proud of one’s non-French or “ethnic†heritage while still being loyal to the Republique.
I don’t agree with that. Two-ness is nearly supposed, in my opinion : between private (religion, heritage, stamp collecting, whathaveyou) and the social (all equals).
Apart of that, the biggest underestimated explanation, imho, is haschich. France consumes a lot, and it’s a few billions each year that go to advertise social rot in these suburbs. Legalizing that stuff is urgent, and it won’t happen.
Detached Observer 11.10.05 at 11:30 am
This post tries to eat its cake and have it too. Since Bertram does not claim he can make a causal link between the Algerian War and the recent riots, it is difficult to conceive what exactly his problem with the Sophie Masson piece is. Bertram accuses Masson of “unemntionable facts and silences” – but perhaps Masson is silent because she, too, cannot see a causal link!
In the absence of a causal link, there is no need to mention any of the things Masson is silent about, for they are simply relevant.
If Bertram thinks the Masson piece is wrongheaded, it is up to HIM to produce an argument that enumerates its shortcomings.
saurabh 11.11.05 at 8:24 pm
A bit late, but my response to a, who asked why it’s okay to lambast France for failing its immigrants and not lambast Britain after 7/7. Briefly put, British immigrants did not revolt en masse on 7/7. A handful of men planted some bombs; the rest of Britain practically uniformly condemned the actions. In France, meanwhile, riots are widespread and signify a much deeper and widespread discontent.
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