Spring Break
Riots Due to Flawed Immigration Policy
Issue date: 11/9/05 Section: Commentary
French President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency Tuesday and instituted a 12-day curfew after nearly two weeks of rioting in which thousands of cars have been burned, several police officers wounded and at least one man beaten to death. The civil unrest encompassing most of France's large suburbs began Oct. 27 after two boys were electrocuted when they hid from police in an electrical substation in the Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. The boys were part of a large impoverished community of immigrants from North Africa. Most of the rioters have been alienated youth of North African origin living in similar communities.
Fortunately, as widespread as the unrest has been, it has been poorly organized. Although the spontaneous nature of the riots has made them harder to control, it means the radical Islamist groups many Europeans have come to fear are not leading them. Even though similar attacks have occurred in Belgium and Germany, they appear simply to be small copycat attacks and not part of some larger trend. Instead, the riots are a unique product of the French national policy of integration that has alienated a large part of its youth.
France's focus on integration is part of its immigration policy. Though immigrants displaced during the colonial war in Algeria flooded France in the 1960s, the country had no plan to deal with the surge in population. The government urged immigrants to surrender their ethnic identities in favor of French nationalism, inhibiting the formation of cultural organizations and refusing to pay special attention to people from North and West Africa. During the 1960s, they built high-rise communities to accommodate foreign workers in the suburbs of French cities.
Slowly, however, the jobs have dried up and poverty, unemployment and crime have risen. Now these immigrants and their French-born children are stuck in these ghettos of the country's suburbs, on the edges of French society with little hope of joining the mainstream. Unemployment in these neighborhoods is up to three times higher than France's national average, while the average income is 40 percent lower. As one Algerian man told The New York Times, "People here don't feel like they're a part of the political system. Their only recourse is to violence."
As the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung proclaimed, "The republican integration model, on which France has for decades based its self-perception, is in flames." In reaction to the riots, French Prime Minister Dominique Villepin has called for increased funding for community groups and job counseling for "every youth under 25" in the country's "sensitive zones." This is a good start, but France must do more to acknowledge the diversity of its population and distribute economic benefits more evenly. It must involve all ethnic groups so they do not have to resort to violence to gain attention.
Fortunately, as widespread as the unrest has been, it has been poorly organized. Although the spontaneous nature of the riots has made them harder to control, it means the radical Islamist groups many Europeans have come to fear are not leading them. Even though similar attacks have occurred in Belgium and Germany, they appear simply to be small copycat attacks and not part of some larger trend. Instead, the riots are a unique product of the French national policy of integration that has alienated a large part of its youth.
France's focus on integration is part of its immigration policy. Though immigrants displaced during the colonial war in Algeria flooded France in the 1960s, the country had no plan to deal with the surge in population. The government urged immigrants to surrender their ethnic identities in favor of French nationalism, inhibiting the formation of cultural organizations and refusing to pay special attention to people from North and West Africa. During the 1960s, they built high-rise communities to accommodate foreign workers in the suburbs of French cities.
Slowly, however, the jobs have dried up and poverty, unemployment and crime have risen. Now these immigrants and their French-born children are stuck in these ghettos of the country's suburbs, on the edges of French society with little hope of joining the mainstream. Unemployment in these neighborhoods is up to three times higher than France's national average, while the average income is 40 percent lower. As one Algerian man told The New York Times, "People here don't feel like they're a part of the political system. Their only recourse is to violence."
As the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung proclaimed, "The republican integration model, on which France has for decades based its self-perception, is in flames." In reaction to the riots, French Prime Minister Dominique Villepin has called for increased funding for community groups and job counseling for "every youth under 25" in the country's "sensitive zones." This is a good start, but France must do more to acknowledge the diversity of its population and distribute economic benefits more evenly. It must involve all ethnic groups so they do not have to resort to violence to gain attention.