France after the riots

This article, which was translated and reproduced in prol-position.net, is a rather depressing update on how the French government, political parties and 'community' organisations have been reacting. Apparently there was a small symbolic 'victory' in that the French right wing was forced to publicly admit there *might* have been some downsides to colonialism. Meanwhile, measures 'in favour of the unemployed' consist of withdrawing their unemployment benefits... no news here, i guess... The offensive of the French Right

Two months after the end of the "riots", one has the impression that nothing occurred in France. 80 percent of French people are convinced that the government has not taken any concrete measures to deal with the problems which caused the riots, and will not do it in the near future. And one can also add that the traditional Left and the radical Left seem to have already forgotten what happened, bemused as they are by 2007 presidential elections.

 Almost no solidarity with the adults in jail and minors under state surveillance

Apart from a petition asking for a general am­nesty and a small weekly meeting in Toulouse and Paris, very little has been done. A demonstration regrouped 200 people in front of a Parisian jail (La Santé) on the 31st December 2005 and that’s about it. Each party of the Left and Far Left is now planning to have its own candidate for the 2007 presidential elections, so probably there will be at least 5 candidates for the Left1 and inside the SP a violent battle is raging between the numerous male candidates (nicknamed the "elephants" of the Party) and a Blairite woman leader.

One group of the Far Left (the Trotskyist LCR, Revolutionary Communist League) campaigned in some suburbs with the help of actors, stand-up comedians and rap musicians to convince young people to vote for next elections. Even if the first and only meeting they organised in Clichy-sous-Bois2 was not welcome by the local youth who criticized this initiative, it was relatively "successful" because 500 new electors got enlisted in a town of 15,000 inhabitants. But it’s difficult to imagine how social problems, which have not been dealt with for 30 years, will be magically solved after the next elections.

The Right takes the initiative

If the Left and Far Left were and are still passive as regards the working class youth, the Right has taken a whole series of initiatives, either symbolic measures (like the creation of a commemoration day for the abolition of slavery, or the suppression of one article of a law praising the "positive role of French presence" in its former colonies), or very concrete measures (against unemployment benefits and for a new two-year labour contract) which will influence and affect both French and foreign young workers. The Right wing has also adopted an agressive and dynamic attitude towards the question of national unity, in the "Gaullist" tradition, hailing France’s capacity to offer an attractive national model, able to reunite the descendents of the French slaveholders and settlers, the descendents of the Revolutionary republicans led by the Enlightenment philosophers, and the descendents of the former colonized people. Cocorico!

The debate about slavery and French colonial past

Just after the riots, a new federation was created: the CRAN (Representative Council of the Black Associations). Imitating the CRIF (Representative council of the Jewish institutions) and the CFCM (French Council of the Muslim Cult), 60 small associations decided to introduce the "Black question" into the French political debate. They were pushed to adopt this attitude by the success of a law recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity adopted in 2001 and also by deeper changes in both African and French West Indian "communities".3 But the "Black" social scientists and intellectuals of the CRAN were also pushed ahead apparently by the participation of a significant number of French West Indian, French-African or African young people to the riots (at least, that was the analysis of the Renseignements généraux – the political police – and some right wing politicians and sociologists). The CRAN is a re-groupment of intellectuals, academics, journalists, etc., who are trying to get a piece of cake from the Neo-Gaullist State. And just two months after the creation of the CRAN, President Chirac gave them some crumbs to play with: he created a foundation about the history of slavery, which will be presided by a former West Indian independentist, and he accepted to commemorate the abolition of slavery on the 10th of May.

These symbolic gestures were accompanied by a small (and also largely symbolic) battle, much debated in all the medias, about the article 4 of a law defending colonialism and pressing teachers to teach its virtues at school. If this law had not provoked any significant reaction in Parliament, and only minority protests among historians and Leftwing people, when it was adopted in February 2005, it provoked several protests and demonstrations in the French West Indies in December 2005, obliging the French Robocop (Sarkozy, minister of Interior) to cancel his visit to Martinique and the Right-wing pro-colonialist lobbies to swallow their article 4. Chirac obliged the most reactionary MPs of his party (the UMP) to suppress one article of a law already voted several months ago!4 The President and his Prime minister claimed that France had to recognize the "dark sides" of its colonial past in order to recreate a new national unity.

So strangely enough, the November-December riots pushed the Right to make three symbolic gestures towards the French-West Indians or French-Africans who feel discriminated because of the colour of their skin. It also helped the Right to adopt an officially anti-racist and even slightly anti-colonialist attitude (as regards the past, not the present course of French imperialism obviously). These measures did not cost anything to the State, but they were an answer to all the "rioters" who had shown their French ID to French and foreign TV cameras and explained that this document did not protect them against racist discrimination in France. And these measures were also directed towards those who will vote in 2007, specifically the West Indians who have an important role in electoral politics both in Metropolitan France and in the French West Indies. The Right did not only adopt these symbolic measures, it also decided to launch all its forces in an offensive against unemployed, foreign illegals and young wage-earners.

The official statistics of unemployment go down and the number of poor goes up

Unemployment is a permanent structural feature of French economy and one of the factors which can explain the November-December riots. Youth unemployment is quite high (23 percent is the most quoted statistics, as opposed to 11 percent for all age categories), specially for unqualified workers, and among them for French-Africans or French-North Africans (see below the annex about immigration in France). So the government made a lot of noise about its "new social measures in favour of the unemployed" while in 2005, 200,000 people have been deprived of their unemployment benefits. And in 2006, thanks to its new decisions, 100,000 people will loose 11 months of unemployment benefits and 50,000 will loose 6 months of their unemployment benefits. So the perspectives for unemployed in general are grim: 90 percent of them get less than the minimum wage (1,357 euros per month before taxes). And the bluff of the right-wing is easily revealed by the fact that the number of people getting the RMI5 has climbed up 7 percent last year.

A new labour contract for people under 26 (CPE) reinforces youth precarity

This CPE (First Hiring Contract)6 is a new breach in the Labour Code which will enable a boss to pay no social charges to the State for 3 years. If last year the government favored small businesses (under 20 employees) with a contract called CNE (New Hiring Contract)7, this year it targets all companies over 20 employees and gives them the possibility of renewing this new contract several times. The advantage of the CPE is that the employee can be fired without any reason and at any time. As regards temporary training periods inside enterprises, which are so vital for young people who are leaving high school or university because they have no job experience, the government has made a lot of noise about "the most social and protective measures" ever taken, because it decided to oblige the bosses to pay these training periods after 3 months… But it knows very well that they usually last much less! And to top it all, the government has authorized young people who are 15 years old to work on night shifts. So, two months after the end of the riots, the future looks quite grim for the working class youth. Hopefully the 400,000 people who demonstrated against the government on February the 7th, in all France, will continue their fight and resistance to the offensive of the State in the next months and enlarge the movement.8

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Annex: Information on immigrants and the suburbs

Immigration France has always been a country of immigration. Between 1851 and 1911, the percentage of immigrants rose from to 1 percent to 3 percent of French population. These immigrants were mainly Belgian, Italian and Spanish. In the 20th century, the first important wave of immigration took place between 1920 and 1930. So the percentage of immigrants rose from 3 to 6.6 percent in 1931. In the 1930s, there was an important arrival of Polish workers (600,000) and Spanish people (500,000) after the defeat of the Spanish Revolution.

These numbers can give the impression that Muslims were not an important religious minority in France before the Second World War. But one must take into account the French Empire (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia but also Western and Central Africa). Until the independence, in 1962

To these immigrants one must add those who are French by birth but come from the French DOM-TOM: Guadeloupe, Martinique, Polynesia, New Caledonia. The 400,000 French West Indians represent an important fraction of the poorly-qualified employees of the public sector (postal services and hospitals). But none of them is considered as a migrant!

The percentage of women among immigrants is much higher than before 1974 because the frontiers have been closed in July 1974 for "non Europeans" and only family immigration and asylum seekers are allowed to enter. This element can explain why the problem of the hijab has taken more importance recently, but that’s not the only reason and probably not the main one.

Important discriminations Immigrants coming from the "South" are victims of all sorts of discriminations as the statistics show. They are mainly employed in the car industry, building industry, cleaning sector and hospitals in lowly-paid jobs. 20 percent of the non-qualified workers are foreigners. 46 percent of foreigners are workers (as opposed to 26 percent of French people). 80 percent of the Turks are workers, 50 percent of the Algerians and Tunisians belong to the working class.

These discriminations had also affected the previous waves of immigration but it did not give birth to a religious movement of protest, because the majority of the Italian, Polish and Spanish immigrants were sharing the same religion as the dominant one in France: catholicism, but it probably not the case of the North Africans.

Part-time jobs and unemployment 42 percent of migrant women have a part-time job as opposed to 31 percent of French women. 20 percent of migrant men are unemployed as opposed to 10 percent of French men. 23 percent of migrant women are unemployed as opposed to 14 percent of French women.

Rate of unemployment (year 2000) according to the nationality

Born in France: 11 percent - Born abroad but naturalized: 14 percent - Algerians: 30.8 percent - Moroccans: 35.8 percent - Tunisians: 19.5 percent - Other Africans: 25.6 percent Marriages

40 percent of the African migrants are Muslim. Polygamy is practiced only among the Mandés who represent 25 percent of the African immigrants. 50 percent of the boys and 25 percent of the girls born in Algeria but living in France marry with a French citizen whose two parents were born in France. Turkish men and women rarely marry French citizens, even they have been brought up in France.

Suburb population The suburbs were not specially constructed for migrants or to hide (as I read in an American newspaper) "the coloured populations" from the White French working class! The estates were constructed to receive three different kinds of populations:   - the former French farmers who became workers in the 1950s and 1960s (remember that France was still a country where the majority of the population lived and worked on the countryside in 1945), - th e former settlers ("Pieds Noirs") of Algeria when they arrived after 1963 as well as the "harkis"

- the foreign workers when they came to work and live with their families (if not,they were housed in shanty towns, or overpopulated "foyers" for singles).

The mass of the population living in French suburbs was and is not composed mainly of migrants or foreigners coming from the "post-colonial world". It is composed of workers.

In 2002, 32 percent of migrant families lived in their own house, 66 percent in collective buildings (private or state owned) and 2 percent in hotel rooms, "provisional buildings" (trailers, slums, barracks on building sites).

Migrant families (with either a migrant father or mother as the head of the family, the other being either French, either also a migrant) represent only 18 percent of the population of 4,7 million people living in the ZUS (Sensitive Urban Zones: working class areas, generally in the suburbs) and only 16 percent of the persons living in the state-owned estates.

These statistics show that the medias don’t know what they are talking about when they compare French state or private-owned estates with American ghettos. One can have the impression that these estates are mainly populated by migrants only if one focuses on some "mono-ethnic" buildings: one tower with mainly Africans, another building with mainly Turks, one street with a majority of West Indians, etc. But basically, until now, French and foreign workers mix in all the senses of the word, geographical and social. The rate of so-called "inter-ethnical" marriages (50 percent for the North Africans, for example) in France after 50 years of presence can’t be compared with the American one (7 percent for Black men, 2.5 percent for Black women) after several centuries. This situation may change in the future, but that remains to be seen.

Yves (Ni patrie ni frontières)

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Footnotes

1 One Communist Party, one Socialist Party, one Green and two Trotskyist candidates. 2 The suburb where the 2 young guys were electrocuted on the 27th October, the event which started the riots. 3 Since the 1970s, the attitude of both Africans and French West Indians living in Metropolitan France has radically changed. Their associations have progressively modified their politics, specially the West Indians who don’t fight anymore against West Indian immigration into Metropolitan France but try to better their situation here, and act as a pressure group both on local West Indian and on French politics. The same is true also for some African or North African "communities": for example, the Malian associations decided to influence the transformation of Malian society from abroad through all sorts of projects linked to NGOs, and not to limit their activities to the hope of returning "home" one day. 4 This law basically served the practical interests of the former French settlers and their Algerian collaborators – "harkis" – during the Algerian war: they are particularly numerous in the South of France, and thus important electorally. 5 Minimum Insertion Revenue, 433 euros per month for a single person, attributed to the 1,4 million of people who are not "allowed" to receive unemployment benefits. 6 Contrat Première Embauche 7 Contrat Nouvelle Embauche 8 For more details about the French riots see the article in English "Dancing with the wolves" (http://www.mondialisme.org/article.php3?id_article...) or the special issue of the French journal Ni patrie ni frontières (no.15) (http://www.mondialisme.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubriq...)