Home > PARIS : THE FIRE RAISER

PARIS : THE FIRE RAISER

by Open-Publishing - Sunday 6 November 2005
9 comments

Edito Demos-Actions Discriminations-Minorit. Police - Repression Governments France

by Patrick Apel-Muller

Situation assessment, sad! French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, claimed that efficiency shall guide his policy... But the impacts of his provoking statements, of his visits in the neighbourhoods where he nags the populations, of his shying away from prevention policy can be measured against burned cars, stones and fire bombs thrown at civil servants, and increasing unrest in some French cities.

Situation assessment, sad! French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, claimed that efficiency shall guide his policy... But the impacts of his provoking statements, of his visits in the neighbourhoods where he nags the populations, of his shying away from prevention policy can be measured against burned cars, stones and fire bombs thrown at civil servants, and increasing unrest in some French cities. While patient work done by municipal authorities together with educationalists, teachers, magistrates, had retied up social links; this achievement now seems to be seriously threatened.

The two youngsters’ death is a drama taking place within a population already weakened by poverty, hopelessness, and discriminations. When, in addition to the lost of their beloved, there are malicious accounts of events, stark lies about a burglary, and unnecessary provocation, like this tear-gas canister shot at a mosque entrance, tension can only flare up. This tension strategy which enables French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, to be thrust into the limelight is neither responsible nor republican.

Actually, Nicolas Sarkozy’s policy is that of "negative discrimination"

How can a minister call a portion of the population, the interior enemy, "scum", which shall be "cleaned up" and "got rid of"? In Argenteuil, another Paris suburb, the most severe critics on the night touring of the chairman of the centre-right governing UMP party were not voiced out by "rascals" but by Argenteuil inhabitants, family men and women who view in such behaviour the willingness to create "environment for urban guerrilla".

After setting fire, Nicolas Sarkozy expected to have the easy job by merely meeting families. Like in La Courneuve, where he got a telling-off from the father of the shot youngster; he faced the dignity of victims’ families, and met but only few of his supporters for a vain show before Bobigny prefecture. But let us be sure that Neuilly-sur-Seine mayor, the city with the highest proportion of wealthiest people and enough police staff to protect them, showed but no remorse. He steadfastly kept to his political agenda, to win extreme right-wing voters by presenting himself as the firewall against insecurity... even if it means fuelling tensions.

It cannot be denied that violence is recurrent. Unbearable and dramatic as this violent act which cost the life of a family head at Epinay-sur-Seine. Interior minister’s theatricals did not stop them. On the other hand, social insecurity which rots the sub-urbs is conducive to abuses and trafficking. Shall we underscore that it is within these populations that the weakening of public services has more damaging impacts? Do we need to remind Sarkozy of the number of policemen he removed from La Courneuve, of the ban of the Right-party’s 2004 Universal Show, as pointed out by La Courneuve communist representatives? Is it not his government which froze the projects for the tramway and underground development, enclosing whole cities? Who, if not youngsters of these cities, are the first victims of hopelessness which is ripe because of CNEs (New recruitment agreement)? In fact, Sarkozy’s policy is that of negative discrimination.

Very convincing in his role as arsonist fire-fighter, the Interior minister received no call to order. Another member of government, Azouz Begag, dared not to distance himself from this policy, only semantically. Neither Jacques Chirac, French president, nor Dominique de Villepin, French prime minister, nor Jean-Louis Borloo, French minister of employment and social integration and housing, condemned such behaviour, which put national integration and republicanism at stake. Victims’ families were received at Matignon only yesterday evening. Kindness or political motives?

http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/pro/art.php?artid=422

Forum posts

  • Globalism and the so called "free market" economy sponsered mainly by Britain and U.S. is the cause for the hopeless situation in France and other European countries. If more key industries move to China, we will see more of those protests. Germany 5 million unemployed, Britain a quarter of the population lives on social welfare!

    • Look to your unions and to your social welfare systems. Wean yourself from the teet of the government dole. Do not blame the West for viewing the reality of global commerce for what it is. You are losing jobs as we are to a culture without collective bargaining and low expectations for wages. Realise that your competitors for manufacturing jobs are working upwards of 60 hours a week as a standard. How about you, 32 hours? And at what wages? This is the reality, it is time we all faced it.

    • Global corporations that call themselves American

      Right On! a True American!
      No a true corporate globalist.
      You are kidding? Free market is not American, it’s global corporate propaganda and a lie.They say it’s good for America, I say for which America? The one where corporate profits come before the people of America. Tariffs are the only constitutional tax. Read the constitution, the founding fathers knew what would happen if the corporate interest ran the goverment.Of course blaming America for their countries problems is bullsh!t too. Blame the real enemy, global corporations that call themselves American.What’s wrong with 6 weeks vacation and good wages.

    • You mean that becoming a third world worker in a first world country is acceptable?
      Give you head a shake!
      cheers, jt

    • No, if manufacturing workers make 3rd world wages in order for manufactured products to be competitive, individuals need to learn other skills. Although these "troubled youths" are offered free education, how many of them are actively involved in educating themselves? Very few. It would cut into their hashish smoking, car burning and "angry time." Spending a half hour at the mosque each day hearing about how the West has robbed them of their culture does not count as an education. At least not one thats marketable to anyone who hires.

      I never thought I’d be feeling sorry for France. Then again they have only themselves and their "Ostrich burying its head in the sand" approach to social engineering to blame.

    • What goes around, comes around.
      The corporate world cannot expand forever, reliant as it is upon fossil fuels and ores.

      The capitalist dream was founded upon the notion of cheap labour, and the utilisation of military force to gain access to land and yet more cheap labour....

      The notion that by limiting the chinese couples to one child, the entire nation would benefit from this state-regulated emancipation was indeed smart.
      Of course, an annual 10,000 public executions does help to motivate the population, and to grease the wheels of the single party state!

      But who knows, maybe the consumers of the West will tire of pointless consumerism, pointless procreation, aimless war, ainless rioting.......

      What, one asks, might be the global consequences if the world population started to get smaller, and smaller , and smaller....

    • What’s wrong with 6 weeks vacation and good wages? Nothing, sounds great. But who’s paying for it? The consumer won’t pay for it. Not when other people will do the same job for less. Is that exploiting the people who do it for less, or is it feeding them? American’s should be education themselves w/ science, engineering and software degrees. America excels at innovation, and that is what we should be exporting.

    • John Gibson, is that you?!?

      You talk just like him; answering your own questions. Just talk to yourself, and save us your tired ways and opinions.

      Thanks!

    • Shrinking populations? There’s no need to wonder, look at the wealthiest western European countries, and see the birthrates falling. The population is actually shrinking excepting immigrants, but I’ll come back to that later. Social welfare systems, and I include the US’s Social Security system in this as well, is founded on the prinicpal that more people will be paying in to the system than receiving support from it. When birthrates start falling, the system will fall apart or the younger generation will have to pay more into it. Think your taxes are high now wait till the post WW2 generation starts to receive their pensions. They are going to skyrocket. How else will these guaranteed benefits be paid for? Let’s all keep in mind that there is no such thing as a free lunch! Sombody has got to pay for it. Who then? How about the immigrants? Make them all citizens and then they get to start paying taxes as well and support the rest of us in our old age! I believe that Europe as well as the US will not accept this easily or willingly. It seems that in France one of the main reasons the native born children of immigrant families were rioting is that they were not given opportunities to get jobs or become part of the mainstream. We have similar problems in the United States as well. Immigration and assimilation are just not made easier by ignoring race and origin they are however easier to ignore. Let’s not turn our backs on the immigrants that come to take the low wage jobs, they are our lifeline to future prosperity. Look no further than the plaque on the base of the Statue of Liberty, donated by the French.