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Une petite probleme.
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Riots again. Technically not in Paris - but an area considered a banlieue or suburb [ghetto] of Paris. Villiers-le-Bel. This all started with the deaths of two young men - involved in a traffic accident with a police car. Does it sound familiar? That's because less than three years ago almost the same thing happened. A youth died in an accident involving police, and then all hell broke loose. And before that incident? There were riots then too. A lot of important French officials are now calling for 'calm'. Including President Sarkozy. He is asking for people to let the justice system take care of the incident. I guess he hasn't been paying attention - people who think the justice system will treat them fairly generally don't riot. Maybe some light protesting. But no burning cars. No storming of police stations. They generally don't give the local police chief a beating when he tries to negotiate. These are some pissed off people. And obviously some people who have been mistreated.
A quote in Le Monde: "Rien n'a été fait depuis les émeutes de 2005." Nothing has been done, and no solutions found to "la situation des banlieues". I don't think that here 'the' situation is being referred to - as in the situation the banlieues are in right now. But instead I think the quote refers to the situation of banlieues in general. Their existence. They encircle Paris. And Lyon too. And both cities have seen violent rioting in them. Because the people who live in the banlieues are left out of the France that the rest of us know. Just like so many low-income areas - the people who live in them aren't given the same opportunities as other French, and aren't treated equally. So I guess to be putting up with blanket - societal abuse is enough of a strain. But then when those people have to - in addition to the pervasive, institutionalized inequality - then see youth lose their lives in questionable circumstances involving police officers - with whom I'm guessing they already aren't on good terms with ... well you can begin to see how things might blow up. Even if the police officers didn't have anything to do with it. The situation is just a combination of really inflammatory ingredients.
These riots + the strike by public sector workers whose special pension benefits are being threatened = not a good week for France.
Of course this isn't just a French problem. We have our own sorts of banlieues here. Although it isn't the sort of thing you might associate with Canada. We might not have the riots. But we do have our own kind of entrenched inequalities ...

November 26, 2007 | 10:37 PM Comments  0 comments

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