Yes I. Just wanted to faire "le point" on the recent French riots.
"Ma 6T va Crack-er" was a 1998 film portraying the events that led up to the riots that "La Haine" was based on. The latter film is the number one reference for gaining an understanding of the delicate situation in France's estates.
However, it is not just a case of suburban decay in France as the media of all countries would have us believe, it is also urban as parts of Marseilles and Paris demonstrate. Anyone familiar with Barbes, La Gare du Nord ( Boulevard de Clichy), Place de Stalingrad and Belleville will know that it is not all "la Vie en Rose" either.
I aim to come across as objective as I can, having been living close to one of these "quartiers chauds", having been the victim of a vehicle fire back in 1991, having worked in deprived schools in the heart of a deprived area and also doing a radio show for a community radio back in the days when these recent troubles had already started to brew.
In 1968, student demonstrated against proposed reforms and bore the brunt of the backlash from the CRS (Compagnie Republicaine de Securite) which they knicknamed the SS: "CRS-SS...etc". The dislike of this at times heavy handed way of policing has not faded and the legacy lives on. Young people do still have a distrust of police tactics in France, and France has one of the largest and best equipped forces in Europe.
Repression of uprising is therefore the job of the CRS and they will be called in to support normal police officers if difficult arrests need to be made.
Hip Hop in France has documented the rift between the young and the police. Many CD's have been released on the topic and none more so than the soundtrack to "La Haine" with "Sacrifice de Poulet" ("Sacrifice of a Pig").
Watch "La Haine" to get a good idea of the language, the boredom and allienation of the rioters of the last month.
Realise this though: in France it is deemed normal to burn on average 150 cars per night and to pelt the fire brigade with missiles. I wonder how many punches in the ribs or blocks of hashish are planted on those who get their papers checked at each street corner. At the height of the troubles (which go on every day) 1500 vehicles were torched. This is pure anarchy that would lead to big unrest in the UK.
We must look to history to understand more about this and France must realise that it's government did not watch "La Haine".
Check it out and love PEACE.
#21 November 2005
Comments...
At last I perceive that in revolutions the supreme power rests with the most abandoned.
- Georges Jacques Danton
Posted by: | 3:27pm 21 November 2005
People living in a democracy often despise the holders of central power ; but they always like to have this power themselves.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Posted by: | 9:14pm 21 November 2005
Yo drinks! On t'a vu sur TF1 l'autre jour quand tu defonsais la cabine telephonique! Tu etais avec DJ molotov n'est-ce pas?
Herbie
Posted by: | 9:17pm 21 November 2005
La Haine is one of the best films I have ever watched. The final scene is so shocking that it still reverberates with me every time I hear the film mentioned. It should be compulsory viewing for everyone who has a role in public life (politicians, teachers, civil servants, police etc) and not just in France.
Posted by: Dan | 10:42pm 21 November 2005
Great writing, more of the same would be great. This situation reminds me to a lesson I learnt in the woods as a child. If you lean on a branch, pushing it closer and closer to the forest floor, unless you can maintain that pressure, and unless you can ignore the desire to keep pushing untill you break this living organism, at some point the branch will do what it does in this situation best and spring back in your face.
Posted by: | 8:40am 22 November 2005
You forgot Sarcelles. But what a great post.
Posted by: Drinks | 11:45am 23 November 2005
France is practically a police state run by thugs themselves. I remember being searched (illegally), violently shoved around and eventually thrown into a room of five policemen to be interrogated on my origins, my profession and my value to society and all because I declined to pay a Fr 500 fine for having my feet on a metro seat.
France has a huge problem with regards to words falling on deaf ears and being countered with aggressive right wing policy. They play on the fear factor rather like the Americans, they are full of empty promises, absurdly argumentative with no objective but to impose their view and I just wish the whole Assemblé Nationale would crumble with Chirac and somene would start the VI République and stop talking about fucking DeGaulle. And if I may add to the history lesson here, the root of the problem began well before 68 or 'La Haine'. It was the beginning of the V République with DeGaulle that it all fell into place. Lets not forget that DeGaulle was a military man himself and point of departure of a fuckin' Police State run by thugs !
Posted by: tisane | 2:03pm 23 November 2005
Tisane mon cousin, tu dis des sages mots de verite. Should we not also go back to the formation of the Republic? Is it not the excuse for liberal despotisme? Article one of the French constition after all does state : " The Republic is one entity, It is undividable".
So does it mean that it will be united in it's fall?
I have a scant regard for Republicanism as it stands. It mascarades as thinly veiled sovereignty. Did you all know Jacques Chiwack is known in the Guinols as "Super Menteur"!
Force a la Cite Robert Desnos
Posted by: | 2:32pm 23 November 2005
The Republic is truly in a very bad way.
"The Republic is one entity, It is undividable" - I read somewhere that today this means State studies into racial origins and income are effectively illegal in France as they suggest divisability and contravene the Constitution.
Bonkers.
Also illegal: headscarves in schools.
Also potentially illegal (case pending): calling France a "slut" in a rap song.
It's like you can only join the club if you dress right, speak right, if you've got the cash and (whispers) you're the right colour please, or else we'll squash your head with a shitty brick.
"It just ain't justice if you ain't got no knickers" who said that?
"Il faut laver son linge sale en famille" (“One should wash one's dirty linen at home”) Napoleon
It was impressive rioting though must be said. I'd liked to see statistics on the major riots that marked Britain Brixton and Handsworth. Boy those were big juicy riots but the French collection were elephantine. And here there was another interesting reaction in France: as other countries started being impressed by the riots, "Wow look at the riots on that!" the French started saying "It's nothing, no really, just my shirt, a clean shirt." A case of denying the dirty linen to the public at large.
Like when the government said: "What CRS mosque invasion?" "What dead Arab?"
If you can't see the dirty linen. Then how can you even bleedin' wash it at all.
Posted by: SlyFm | 4:45pm 24 November 2005
The official hypocrisy that all, regardless of religion or national origin, are French disguises the racism and discrimination that surely is also a major contributing factor to the riots of November. Closer resemblance to US black riots of 1968 than to the French student riots of that year. imo.
Posted by: moon mullins | 2:34pm 26 November 2005
Closer still to the 1992 riots in LA. Same situation, same trigger event.
Agree with everything, but want to point out: it's not particularly the headscarf that is illegal, it is religious symbols/expressions of any kind whithin the framework of schools: so no veils, no kippas, no crosses, etc because of heavy emphasis put on seperation of church and state... Not that this is always the case or even works...
Posted by: lemonn | 1:09am 27 November 2005
I watched 'La Haine' again last night (which you can get for less than a tenner at play.com) and it is remarkably prescient at the moment. If anyone has not seen it, you should.
Posted by: Dan | 3:46pm 27 November 2005
RE : Laicite in French education. The French education system guarentees a secular education in which the religious and political beliefs are not promoted. This goes back to 1882 and the setting up of the Education Nationale by Jules Ferry. In 2004, French Assembly voted to uphold the law of laic education and this of course caused scandal.
In Guadeloupe once, in my school, in accordance with the rules, a Rasta was asked to cover his locks, this was in a school with no muslim pupils.
Some French feel that there is a real potential for the islamisation of urban France and the ghettoisation of communities. Sounds like all the British Residence secondaire lot to me. I have seen English ghettos in France, as well as Dutch.
The reasons for this? The French economy is well dodge!
Vive la Rapublique
Herbie
Posted by: | 10:42am 28 November 2005
Hell yeah Herb,
I believe either you wear it all or you wear nothing of it.
When [french] women go to muslim states (especially the hard core ones), they are asked to cover up and to not frequent male establishments. They are requested these things in a forcible manner. However, when muslim women come to France, they are allowed all their customs and practices because, of course, the French would be seen as racist.
If you don't like a particular country or its customs, there are about 120 other countries you can chose from.
peace to all the magrebhins. I'm sure they certainly didn't envisage this in their exodus...
Posted by: Mon Zob | 2:52pm 28 November 2005