[update below] [2nd update below] [3rd update below]
I’ve been intending to comment on the Trappes riot of last weekend (if one is not au courant, see here and here), which almost a week later continues to défrayer la chronique. What happened in Trappes more or less followed the same dreary scenario as almost all banlieue riots, as I discussed in my posts on the one in Amiens last August (see here and here; also see my post here on the London riots of August 2011, where one noted similar dynamics to those in France). I was going to spell out once again the utterly predictable unfolding of events but, as it happens, the latest issue of Le Canard Enchaîné (July 24 2013) has a front page piece that does precisely this (and in LCE’s trademark style). LCE has no website to speak of and one normally cannot find its content online, but I managed to do so with this one, so voilà, here it is (N.B. for those whose colloquial French is less than impeccable, poulets—in this context—and poulaga are argot for ‘cops’).
Et hop ! à la Trappes !
Tiens, ça s’est passé dans quelle banlieue, cette fois? Où ça? A Trappes. Ah, oui, la ville de Lilian Thuram. Non, pardon, celle de Jamel Debbouze et d’Omar Sy. Comme d’habitude, le même scénario, suivi du meme cinéma…
Scène un: le contrôle. Ou comment une étincelle, même la plus petite, suffit à embraser illico tout un quartier. A Trappes, donc, des poulets contrôlent une femme en burka et ça se termine en émeute devant le commissariat.
Scène deux: les versions. Famille burka : les flics ont déboulé comme des cow-boys et ont traité tout le monde de «sale pute». Famille poulaga : des fous furieux se sont jetés sur la police, qui faisait tranquillement son travail.
Scène trois: l’arrivée du ministre. De l’Intérieur, bien sûr. Roulement de caisse et petits muscles bandés: «C’est inacceptable!», «L’Etat ne les laissera pas faire et ne l’acceptera pas! », «II n’y a qu’une loi dans notre pays!» Bravo, monsieur Valls! On dirait (presque) du Sarkozy. Et le ministre (PS) de la Ville, François Lamy, n’est pas venu? Déjà en vacances? «Mon rôle n’est pas de réagir à l’évènement, mais de m’inscrire sur le moyen et le long terme (…). C’est d’abord un problème d’ordre public, à lui (Valls) de gérer», balaie l’intéressé («Le Parisien», 23/7).
Scène quatre: l’interpellation du ministre par une mère. Il y en a toujours une (généralement proche des émeutiers), et il lui répond toujours. C’est le clou du spectacle, le numéro d’acrobate le plus périlleux, mais le passage obligé dans la forêt de cameras et de micros. Valls s’est-il dérobé ? A-t-il bien répondu ? Mieux que l’ami du «karcher contre la racaille» de 2005 ? «Acceptez les lois de la République! Vous les acceptez, chère madame », a balancé Valls. Verdict: bof, peut mieux faire.
Scène cinq: la justice et la République implacables. Attention, les sanctions vont pleuvoir, les comparutions sont immédiates. Résultat, lundi 22 au tribunal correctionnel: débats sans fin, manque de preuves … Cinq prévenus dans le box et un embastillé (10 mois). Famille burka: scandalisée! Famille poulaga : scandalisée!
Sixième scène: les commentateurs. Récupération politique oblige, bon vieux refrain du retour au laxisme, à droite toute! Le patron de l’UMP, Jean-François Copé : «La violence monte d’autant plus que les messages gouvernementaux de laxisme se multiplient depuis un an.» L’ami des Auvergnats, Brice Hortefeux : le gouvernement «doit avoir le courage de faire preuve de sévérité face à des voyous qui ne respectent rien et qui insultent les lois de la République». Et merci surtout pour celle sur la burka : une belle loi électoraliste sous de sympathiques dehors laïcards, qui concernait trois pelés et deux barbus et qui, comme prévu, de l’aveu même des poulets sur le terrain, se relève inapplicable. Elle crée des situations de crise à tout-va, attise tous les fantasmes pro-islam et anti-islam, excite les réacs et déchaîne les mollahs. Elle a même réveillé quelques militants de l’habillé intégral qui s’amusent à cumuler jusqu’à 30 amendes à elles seules … Mais, pendant ce temps, toujours pas de grand «plan Marshall pour les banlieues», promis sous la droite comme sous la gauche.
Enfin, septième scène: municipales de Trappes, mars 2014. Tiens, le Front national est au second tour. Famille burka : “la France est raciste”. Famille poulaga: “ça devait finir par arriver…”
C. N
Le Canard absolutely nails it (though the last bit, about next year’s municipal election, is tongue-in-cheek, as the FN’s presence in Trappes is minimal, as is its electoral clout). A few remarks about the Trappes riot. First, Trappes really is la zone: spatially isolated—one only ventures into the town if one lives there or has an excellent reason to go—and with some two-thirds of its 30K inhabitants (heavily Maghrebi and African-immigrant origin) living in public housing (the tours et barres of the cités). If riots are going to happen anywhere in the Paris area, they’ll happen in Trappes. As far as banlieue-ghettos go, Trappes is one of the worst (though I shouldn’t dump on the place too much, as one of France’s leading social science specialists of political Islam is a Trappiste and feels that her town is unfairly stigmatized).
Secondly, this is the first riot that was set off by an encounter between the police and a woman wearing the niqab. In an April 2011 post on France’s “burqa” ban (here), I wrote that the police were strongly opposed to the law, as they dreaded having to enforce it (and saw it as unenforceable in any case). Well, now we’ve seen one of the perverse effects of the law—a law enacted to make a symbolic point and that has ended up creating more problems than those it was intended to eradicate.
Thirdly, in the conflicting versions of the initial incident—of the police vs. the couple whose IDs were checked—, the truth is likely somewhere between the two—as it invariably is—but, in this case, I instinctively lean toward the couple’s side of the story. Knowing how the French police act in such circumstances, the couple’s description of the cops’ behavior rings true. As for the barbu husband and niqab-wearing wife, who are manifestly extreme in their practice of Islam (both are converts), I wouldn’t put it past them to behave aggressively toward the police in turn, at least verbally. But as for the police assertion that the husband, named Mickaël, physically aggressed them first, I don’t buy it. Not in the absence of eyewitnesses.
The police were not obliged to stop the couple, check their IDs, and give the wife a ticket. Wearing face veils may be illegal but this is Ramadan, the weather is hot, and it’s Trappes. The police could have just let this one go. That they decided to stop the couple suggests that they were looking for a confrontation, as they certainly knew that the risks of an incident were high.
Fourth remark. It is striking the extent to which the media is giving play to those whose version of events contradicts that of the police. Husband Mickaël has even been on TV to give his side (here; also here and here). And there are new websites that track and expose the police in their acts (and lies), such as Copwatch (don’t worry, the site’s safe). A positive development.
Fifthly, it all comes back to the contrôle au faciès—ethnic/racial profiling by the police—, which I wrote about in June 2012. The new Socialist government pledged to reform the practice but then backed down in the face of hostility from the police unions. So long as this pratique à la française is not drastically reformed, relations between the police and a part of the French population will remain execrable. And with the certainty of more riots.
Here are a couple of good commentaries by gauchiste politicians (EELV): Noël Mamère on “Trappes, les musulmans et le racisme d’Etat” and Esther Benbassa (who is also an academic historian and specialist of French Jewry), “Trappes brûle-t-il?” And Carine Fouteau in Mediapart has an analysis entitled “À Trappes, les violences font écho à la montée de l’islamophobie.”
UPDATE: Political scientist Jacques de Maillard, who teaches not too far from Trappes, has an op-ed in Le Monde on the Trappes events and in which he critiques the police, “Le voile révèle les failles du pacte républicain.” In the same issue of Le Monde (dated July 25th) is an op-ed by Jean-François Copé expressing his (rather predictable) point of view on the matter. No link to that. The interested reader may look for it him/herself.
2nd UPDATE: Journalist Jean-Laurent Cassely has an informative article in Slate.fr on urban renewal in Trappes over the past decade, “Les nouvelles déchirures de Trappes la «recousue»,” that is progressively reducing the percentage of public housing units in the town.
3rd UPDATE: Journalist Julia Pascual has in-depth report in Le Monde’s February 11th 2017 issue, “Police et jeunes des cités: la confrontation.” The lede: “Dans les quartiers populaires, les contrôles d’identité récurrents sont l’occasion de face-à-face tendus avec les forces de l’ordre.”
Interior minister Manuel Valls in Trappes, July 22 2013 (photo: François Guillot/AFP)
Arun, I can’t go along with this sentence : “the police were strongly opposed to the law, as they saw it as unenforceable and dreaded having to do so. Well, now we’ve seen one of the perverse effects of the law—a law enacted to make a symbolic point and that has ended up creating more problems than those it was intended to eradicate.” 1) The fact that “the police” – meaning unions – is opposed to a law, doesn’t make that law useless. I am glad the cops don’t make the laws here. 2) It is not just a symbolic law. It is not just about niqab or burka or whatever, it is against the fact of concealing your face in the espace public. The law says : “”nul ne peut, dans l’espace public, porter une tenue destinée à dissimuler son visage”. That applies to corsican retarded terrorists and independantists holding press conference wearing balaclavas as well. I fully support that.I want to live in a country where people do not hide their face. The symbolic aspect is twofold. One regarding women. In France, women must be free to dress as they like, and no one can impose that they should hide their face. Women behind niqab are always a disturbing sight for me. And my wife feels even worse. Two, regarding religion, we are a laïc country, we have been for a long time. I am personnaly in favor of strict limitations regarding religious affairs. I am aware that for social reasons a growing number of underpriviled people (that’s an understatement !) turn to and use religions and not just Islam, to challenge a society that’s unfair to them and doesn’t work as well as it should. In this respect religions can become very dangerous. As a french citizen I have inherited a sense of what is freedom and what is liberty in my country – and it is not universal, it is not the same as in the US for instance. I want to protect that delicate balance between freedom and fair order. I am concerned because I observe that we accept unacceptable “zones de non droit” and we do “contrôle au faciès”, and we practice police harassment, and there is still no plan for suburbs. And I see almost everyday in the center of my city members of the “minorités visibles” (another shitty politically correct expression) behave in a very unpleasant, “a-sociale” way and therefore foster in harassed and exhausted people and more, the dreadful despicable amalgame that connects the deadbeats, lazybones, street punkdealers, fashionistas des quartiers wearing hundreds of euros worth of Nike-Adidas regalia with the respectable law abiding, silent moslem citizens. I am sorry, I find the article from the Canard, very easy, IMO it is cynical a “Que se vayan todos” superficial type of reaction from the elitist media hovering over everything..
Massilian, a couple of points. First, on the ‘burqa’ law, I address your observations and objections in my blog post of April 2011 on the question, and to which I link above. Secondly, on laïcité and being “in favor of strict limitations regarding religious affairs”, one should be reminded that the 1905 law defines the institutional relationship between religion and the state (and to which one may add the 1959 Debré law and 2004 law on ostentatious religious symbols in public schools). Laïcité, legally defined at least, does not speak to limiting religious expression in the private sphere (and which includes public space). If visible manifestations of religiosity bother certain people, that’s their problem, isn’t it?
As for freedom and liberty, I do believe these concepts are universal. I do not accept that there’s a such thing as liberté à la française and which should differ from à l’américaine…
Here I go again, but more concise since I just blew it when publishing my lengthy answer to your answer….
Regarding the existence of a “universal concept of freedom”.
I felt like adding that after reading Levy Strauss and Jared Diamond (and many others…) over the years, that lead me to think that teenagers in New Guinea or Bororo teenagers in the rainforest probably didn’t address their elders with : “j’ai bien le droit de….” every five minutes, unless they already have satellite tv, which by now they probably do and listen to Rihanna and Lil’ Wayne on MTV…
I believe that my (our) dear notion of “liberté individuelle” is a fairly modern, not yet universal, western concept.
That for instance, if I grew up as a woman in the Mea Sharim district of Jerusalem, or say Peshawar … that would greatly affect the extent of my understanding of the concept of liberty which is greatly related to my education.
How can you dream of something you can’t even imagine ? If there is no democracy, if there is no education, no information, just elderly men saying what is right and what is wrong, if there are no women’s right, if you can stoned to death for whatever reason, can you suddenly imagine becoming a Femen ? I guess not. You need “mehr licht”.
Far too many people are taught (or just trained) and therefore are led to believe that freedom, happiness and wisdom, are all one same simple thing : follow tradition, respect the elders and abide in the rules.
The extent of your concept of freedom relies on your amount freedom itself. Therefore it is not the same around the world.
People who fight and claim “western style freedom and human rights” have access to enough information about democracy telling them that it exists and that here and there people are free to think, learn, move, vote, etc.,more or less so according to their level of wealth…
Regarding the religious manifestations in the public space.
I feel that France is a swell place for atheists, agnosticists and laïcs and that there are not too many places like that on the earth.
I do wish it remains that way. It is part of my culture. It is part of the french heritage. Our president doesn’t take oath on the bible, we don’t have “in God we trust printed on the euros. We don’t claim the right to bear arms. On the other hand, we beheaded a king and a queen, we hanged hundreds of priests, we burned down many abbeys. We carved Liberté Egalité Fraternité on top of our public buildings. We put Voltaire and Hugo in the Pantheon (“Si je suis tombé par terre, c’est la faute à Voltaire, le nez dans le ruisseau, c’est la faute à Rousseau”). All that, plus our laïc (heavily influenced by 19th century socialist ideas) school system, plus my deportee stateless parents, influenced greatly my notion of freedom. And my notion of what France is all about.
I loathed the way the question of the “identité française” was braught up and linked to immigration issues. BUT I believe the understanding of what France and being french are all about has lost content over the past years. What we decided to share, have in common, protect, defend, believe, value, etc. It has diluted. Ideals are lost, dreams are blurred, money, marketing, comfort, egos, took over. I believe it is time to insist heavily that when there are rights there are duties. Spelling : D.U.T.I.E.S.
I am not a nationalist but countries do make a difference. It is not all dull grey, same-same. Differences are good. They make us think. As far as the place for religion is concerned, we in France don’t think as the English, we don’t think as the Americans, we don’t think as most of the other nations. We have come a long way. Good.
I am alarmed when I see how much space is still dedicated to religious issues everywhere. I am stunned when I see most latin america heads of state participate in the papal jamboree in Rio. I am glad we don’t consider and teach in our school system the creationist theory and the darwinian evolution theory as two different but equally valuable paradigms.
Yes, I absolutely do resent such public “heavy” religious manifestations as “voile integral”, niqab and praying in the streets and penitents parades and all the likes. To be fully honest, I am not too comfortable with (Gay) Europride parades either. I consider sex and religion as domestic issues, with all the proper rights to practice but please off the public space.
I may be a bit dogmatic here, but imo all public demonstrations of communautarism suck.
Massilian, I’ll have more to say on this subject soon, in view of the story in today’s Le Monde on the Haut Conseil de l’Intégration proposing banning the wearing of religious symbols in universities. Totally crazy.
Here’s a relevant article, if you didn’t see it
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2013/08/02/voile-islamique-une-loi-difficilement-applicable_3455937_3224.html