French government and opposition back intensified repression

This incident acted as a spark igniting a veritable tinder box of social tensions that have been building up over many years through the neo-liberal policies of successive Left and Right governments. Youth in Clichy-sous-Bois reacted immediately against the police by setting fire to buildings and cars in their neighborhoods. In the following days, youth in surrounding suburbs joined in. Within four or five days, the protests had spread to the entire Paris area and to a number of oppressed suburbs on other areas of the country.

One of the most common manifestations of the confrontations with police has been the burning of cars. In the nights of the previous week, Wednesday saw 150 cars burnt; Thursday: 500 with 80 arrests; Friday 900 cars with more than 200 arrests.

However, last Saturday night, nearly 1,300 cars went up in flames, not to mention numerous public buildings and commercial centers, while police arrested more than 260 youth.

The French press is now reporting incidents in virtually every area of the country. Of the 1,300 cars, more than 540 were set on fire in the provinces. This included Haut-Normandie, 6 cars, Nord-Pas de Calais, 80, Aquitaine, 36, Centre, 33, Pays-de-la-Loire, 38, Bretagne, 30, Lorraine, 25 cars and 5 buses, France-Compté, 20, Rhone Alpes, 10, Midi-Pyrénées, 50, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, 24.

As with the recent riots in Birmingham, England, and Århus, Denmark, and a year ago in Amsterdam, Holland, there has been a systematic campaign both in the French and foreign press to portray the spontaneous outbursts of these oppressed sections of youth as being exclusively a question of immigrants. References to black and Arab youth often with hints of links to terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda have abounded. However, youth of Arab, African and Caribbean origin in France are mainly second- or more likely third-generation immigrants and for all intents and purposes are French.

Furthermore, none of the press refers to the fact that the groups of youth in revolt also comprise not only Arab and black youth but also many poor white youth who share the same oppressed conditions of unemployment and police repression. It is not the youth that are racist, but French employers and the French state that systematically discriminate against Arab and black youth as well as against white youth living in the same depressed suburbs.

That the current revolt takes the backward form of burning and smashing cars and property in these youths’ own neighborhoods expresses the deep frustration and lack of perspective among these most vulnerable layers of the working class.

The Socialist Party (PS) and the French Communist Party (PCF) bear the principal responsibility for the complete alienation of these layers of the youth from society. Not only did past “Governments of the Left” introduce the neo-liberal policies now being continued and intensified by the present government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and his deputy Nicolas Sarkozy, but, as the elected municipal officials in these suburbs, they have overseen the destruction of all the social services in these towns, leaving entire sections of workers and youth to their fate.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/fran-n07.shtml