French Riots

By Robert Walling
Storms of rioting began spreading to dozens of French cities during the last week of October. The violent demonstrations were in response to the accidental deaths of two teenagers—Ziad Benna and Bouna Traoré—in the predominately Muslim Clichy-sous-Bois neighborhood of Paris. The two were killed by accidental electrocution after fleeing from police to a power sub-station. The police maintain that the teenagers overreacted when the officers tried to question them on another incident. Lawyers representing the deceased's families question why the two felt so threatened by the officers. Rioting spread through Clichy-sous-Bois, after rumors that police had left two Muslim youths for dead in the station had spread.

Within a week, the rioting that began in one Paris suburb, where unemployment and crime are high, had spread to Toulouse, Nice and other French cities. Approximately 1,000 cars had been burned and destroyed in Paris, along with buildings and other property. Protesters throwing items at the train halted a rail line from central Paris to Charles deGaulle International Airport. Three schools were burned in Paris alone.

Although the rioting continues, the French government has responded. Any non-French citizen arrested for rioting will be deported. An after-dark curfew has been set for the affected neighborhoods.

Although the majority of the protestors have been of North African or Muslim heritage, the conflict is based on economics rather than the Islamic ideologies. Most rioters are minority French citizens in early-to-late teens who are less likely to find work than their white or ethnic French counterparts. France, unlike the United States, has no anti-discrimination laws or affirmative action programs when it comes to hiring practices. Unemployment in France’s foreign-born population peaks at the towering number of 36 percent.

Although many French-born citizens of African or Muslim heritage are college educated, there remains a bias towards hiring employees with French surnames; applicants named Rene are more likely to be hired than those named Rashid. This has to lead growing tensions between minorities trying to fit into their native society that does not, for the most part, consider them French.

Do the conflicts in France starkly relate to Americas own civil rights movement? Perhaps the French people are going through the same conflict at their own pace. If anything is learned by this conflict, it is that any society that opens its doors must be willing to open its opportunities as well.