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2005 French riots

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Beginning in the suburbs of Paris on 29 October 2005, civil unrest spread mainly through the outskirts of urban areas of France and has continued for twelve consecutive nights[1]. It is the most dramatic civil disorder experienced in France since the 1968 student revolt [2].

Cities affected by sustained rioting as of 6 November; minor unrest was reported from a total of 274 communes.

Rioting was triggered by the deaths of two teenagers in Clichy-sous-Bois, a poor commune in an eastern banlieue (suburb) of Paris. Additional violence then spread to other areas of the Île-de-France région (Seine-et-Marne, Val-d'Oise, Suresnes) as well as to other cities in France including Rouen, Dijon, Toulouse, Lille and Paris[3][4][5][6].

The civil unrest is manifest primarily in mass arson attacks on vehicles and buildings, but has also led to violent clashes between civilians, mostly poor youths, and the French Police. So far, thousands of vehicles have been torched and several hundred people have been arrested[7]. Rioters have fired on police with pistols and shotguns in the southern Parisian suburb of Grigny, injuring 30 policemen, three of them seriously.[8]. The first fatality was reported to be an elderly Parisian (Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, 61) who was set upon whilst trying to extinguish a fire [9]. It is noteworthy that fires have been burned mostly in the poorest areas, and that so far not a single store has been looted, or private houses been flamed. Aside from cars, young rebels seem to be destroying mostly public property. This marks a radical difference with other forms of town rebellions, like Los Angeles in 1992 and draws it closer to other forms of violent political and union protest in France.

The unrest has caused much controversy as its causes are speculated upon. Political leaders including the President and Prime Minister made pledges to restore order. On 7 November 2005, the Prime Minister announced that the cabinet would meet on Tuesday morning to re-instate the 1955 law on emergency measures which would allow authorities to impose curfews.

Rioting areas in the Paris region as of 4 November

Trigger

On Thursday 27 October 2005, a group of 10 high school teenagers were playing soccer in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. The teenagers allegedly ran and hid when police officers arrived to conduct immigration-ID checks. Three of the teenagers, thinking they were being chased by the police, climbed a wall to hide in a power substation [10] [11]. "Bouna Traoré, a 15-year-old of Mali [or Mauritanian [12] ] background, and Zyed Benna, a 17-year-old of Tunisian origin" [13] were electrocuted by a transformer in the electrical relay substation. A third youth, Muttin Altun, 17, was injured and hospitalized. [14]

The New York Times reports, citing two police investigations, that the incident began at 5:20 p.m. on Thursday, 27 October 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois when police were called to a construction site there to investigate a possible break in. Six youths were detained by 5:50 p.m. During questioning at the police station in Livry-Gargan at 6:12 p.m. blackouts occured at the station and in nearby areas. These were caused, police say, by the electrocution of the two boys and the injury of the third. [15]

"According to statements by Mr. Altun, who remains hospitalized with injuries, a group of 10 or so friends had been playing soccer on a nearby field and were returning home when they saw the police patrol. They all fled in different directions to avoid the lengthy questioning that youths in the housing projects say they often face from the police. They say they are required to present identity papers and can be held as long as four hours at the police station, and sometimes their parents must come before the police will release them." [16]

There is controversy over whether or not the teens were actually chased. The local prosecutor, François Molins, has said they believed so, but the police were actually after other suspects attempting to avoid an identity check [17]. Molins and Sarkozy maintain that the dead teenagers had not been "physically pursued" by the police. This is disputed by some: The Australian reports that "Despite denials by police officials and M Sarkozy and M de Villepin, friends of the boys said they were being pursued by police after a false accusation of burglary and that they "feared interrogation" [18].

This event ignited pre-existing tensions. Protesters told the Associated Press the unrest was an expression of frustration with high unemployment and police harassment in the areas. One protester said, "People are joining together to say we've had enough," and continued, "We live in ghettos. Everyone lives in fear." [19][20] The rioters' suburbs are also home to a large North African immigrant population, adding ethnic and religious tensions which many believe contribute further to such frustrations. For further discussion on the background of the conflicts, see Social situation in the French suburbs.

Timeline

Main article: Timeline of the 2005 French civil unrest

Assessment of rioting

Assessments of the extent of violence and damage that occurred during the riots are under way. Figures may be incomplete or inaccurate. Some French media sources like France 3 have also decided not to report the quantity of damages in order to avoid inflaming the situation.[21]

Key data

  • Started: 5:20 p.m. on Thursday, 27 October 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois
  • Towns affected: 74 [22]
  • Property damage: 5,873 vehicles (Not counting buildings)
  • Deaths: 1 (Not counting Benna and Traore)
  • Arrests: 1,500+
  • Police and firefighter injuries: 120

Source: BBC News unless stated

Tables and figures


date vehicles burned arrests extent of riots sources
1. 28/10 Clichy-sous-Bois
2. 29/10 29 14 Clichy-sous-Bois [23]
3. 30/10 30 19 Clichy-sous-Bois [24]
4. 31/10 Clichy-sous-Bois, Montfermeil
5. 1/11 Seine-Saint-Denis
6. 2/11 40 Seine-Saint-Denis, Seine-et-Marne Val-d’Oise, Hauts-de-Seine
7. 3/11 315 29 Île-de-France, Dijon, Rouen, Bouches-du-Rhône [25]
8. 4/11 596 78 Île-de-France, Dijon, Rouen, Marseille [26] [27]
9. 5/11 897 253 Île-de-France, Rouen, Dijon, Marseille, Évreux, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Hem, Strasbourg, Rennes, Nantes, Nice, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Pau, Lille [28] [29] [30]
10. 6/11 1,295 312 Île-de-France, Nord, Eure, Eure-et-Loir, Haute-Garonne, Loire-Atlantique, Essonne. [31]
11. 7/11 1,408 395 274 towns in total. Île-de-France, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Midi-Pyrénées, Rhône-Alpes, Alsace, Franche-Comté. [32] [33] [34]
12. 8/11 1,173 330 Paris region, Lille, Auxerre, Toulouse, Alsace, Lorraine, Franche-Comté [35] [36] [37]
TOTAL > 5,700 > 1,400

Areas affected

Île-de-France

Areas affected (partial)

Other French areas affected

Historical context

Main article: Social situation in the French suburbs

Responses

Political

File:Nicolas Sarkozy UMP.jpg
Nicolas Sarkozy

Populist Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has consistently advocated a tough approach to crime and restoring law and order, is a major probable contender for the 2007 presidential election. Success or failure on his part in quelling violence in suburban ghettos may thus have far-ranging implications. Any action by Sarkozy is likely to be attacked by the political opposition, as well as by members of his political coalition UMP who also expect to run for the presidency. Le Monde, in a 5 November editorial [39] reminisces about the "catastrophic" elections of 2002 where right-wing candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen managed to enter the second round of voting, showing concern that a similar situation might arise in the upcoming elections as a backlash to the riots.

After the fourth night of riots, Sarkozy declared a zero tolerance policy towards urban violence and announced that 17 companies of riot police (C.R.S.) and 7 mobile police squadrons (escadrons de gendarmerie mobile) would be stationed in contentious Paris neighborhoods. Sarkozy has said that he believes that some of the violence may be at the instigation of organized gangs. "... All of this doesn't appear to us to be completely spontaneous," he said [40]. Undercover police officers were sent to identify "gang leaders, drug traffickers and big shots." Sarkozy's approach was criticized by left-wing politicians who called for greater public funding for housing, education, and job creation, and refraining from "dangerous demagoguery" [41]. Sarkozy was further criticized after he referred to the rioters as racaille and voyous [42] (translating to "scum" [43], "riff-raff" [44], "thugs" [45] or "hoodlums" [46]). During his visit to Clichy-sous-Bois, the Interior Minister was to meet with the families of the two youths killed, but when the tear gas grenade was sent into the Clichy mosque, the families pulled out of the meeting. Banou Traoré's brother Siyakah said, "There is no way we're going to see Sarcozy, who is incompetent. What happened in the mosque is really disrespectful." [47] The families finally met Dominique de Villepin on 3 November.

The left-wing newspaper Libération cited the exasperation of suburb youth at the harassment by the police and Interior Minister Sarkozy ("lack of respect") [48]. A schoolkid parent declaration that "Torching a school is unacceptable, but the one who put on the fire is Sarkozy" was all over the French press, including conservative Le Figaro [49].

Azouz Begag, delegate minister for the promotion of equal opportunity, made several declarations about the recent unrest, opposing himself to Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy for the latter's use of "imprecise, warlike semantics", which he says cannot help bring back calm in the affected areas [50].

On November 5, Paris prosecutor Yves Bot told Europe 1 radio that "This is done in a way that gives every appearance of being coordinated." Some Aulnay-sous-Bois residents, as reported by Reuters, suspect that the riots were linked to the drug trade or even coordination by Islamic fundamentalists [51]. Meanwhile, other Aulnay-sous-Bois residents interviewed considered this unjustified. Jeremie Garrigues, 19, doubted this was the case. "If those kids had been organized, they would have done much worse -- they would have used guns and bombs against the town hall and the prefecture," he argued. "Those are all politicians' theories," remarked an Algerian woman named Samia, whose main concern was how frightened her children were by the unrest. "We live here in reality." [52] Jean-Marie Huet, director of criminal affairs and graces, after visiting an artisanal factory of molotov cocktails, said that "this is not really spontaneous trouble anymore"; he further stated "Correlations are made and situations are compared. No one has yet established that there should be any sort of underground organisation" [53].

Muslim leaders of African and Arab communities in France have also issued a fatwa, or religious order, against the riots. "It is strictly forbidden for any Muslim... to take part in any action that strikes blindly at private or public property or that could threaten the lives of others," said the fatwa by the Union of Islamic Organisations of France.

Police

An official of Action Police CFTC, an "ultra-minority" police trade union [54], described the riots as a "civil war", and called on the French Army to intervene [55], [56]. This caused outrage, notably triggering responses from the UNSA-Police union, which represents the majority of riot police, describing the situation in less dramatic terms [57]. In response to the riots, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy stated that police officers should be armed with non-lethal weapons to combat urban violence [58]. Other voices in the public sphere have encouraged the use of deadly force as offering a more permanent solution to the problem of rioters. The French government, even prior to these riots, has been equipping law enforcement forces with less-lethal weapons (such as "flash-balls" and Tasers) in order to better deal with petty delinquency and urban unrest, especially in poor suburban communities.

French national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that there appeared to be no coordination among gangs in different areas. But he said youths in individual neighborhoods were communicating by cellphone text messages or email -- arranging meetings and warning each other about police operations. According to the Guardian, (November 6 2005), Hamon said, "what we notice is that the bands of youths are, little by little, getting more organized, arranging attacks through cell phone text messages and learning how to make gasoline bombs." The police have found a gasoline bomb-making factory in a derelict building; Justice Ministry official Jean-Marie Huet told The Associated Press that gasoline bombs "are not being improvised by kids in their bathrooms." The apparent role of the Internet in helping to coordinate and cause unrest was also noted. [59]

Firefighter

The Paris Fire Brigade developed an "Urban violences plan", inspired by the experience of the Ulster firefighters (Libération, Oct. 29). The "hot zone" is identified and the fire engines wait outside this zone. When a fire is reported, a minimal team is engaged (two men outside the fire engine) under cover of the police forces; when the fire does not show any risk of spreading or causing casualties, the firefighters withdraw without attempting to put it out. While in the zone, firefighters stay alert for projectiles. The layout of the area is taken into account so that firefighters may not be trapped in a dead end.

During the current event, fire engines and firefighters from other départements were called for reinforcement; they were placed to defend calm areas (i.e. Paris intra muros), whereas the Paris Fire Brigade, which is a military organisation, dealt with the hot zones.

A few firefighters were injured by broken glass or molotov cocktails, while there are reports of an attack using fine pellet air guns.

Possible Spread to other countries

  • Belgium - On Monday 6 November, the first possibly related incident outside France took place. Five cars were torched in Saint-Gillis, Brussels in Belgium. Belgian police considered it as an isolated case. [60] However, on Monday another five cars were torched in the region, as more were overturned and Molotov cocktails were thrown at the police. [61] In Liège, the latter also took place in certain streets. [62]
  • Germany - A number of arson attacks and other acts of vandalism possibly inspired by the riots in France have been committed in Berlin, Germany. Six cars were set ablaze in Bremen and Berlin on the night between 6 and 7 November. In Berlin, five cars were set on fire. In Bremen, a caravan (camper) burned down. Police have not ruled out the possibility that those were copycat attacks related to those in France. [63]
  • Denmark - A wave of arson in Aarhus in Denmark has occurred over the past week days. [64]

International reaction

  •  Germany - "We also have youth violence problems in Germany, but we haven't experienced cases of the dimensions of the blind violence that's taking place in France at the moment," said Norbert Seitz, director of the German Forum for Crime Prevention, a private information center. Wolfgang Schäuble, a conservative member of Parliament slated to be Germany's interior minister, concurred. "The conditions in France are different from the ones we have," he said. "We don't have these gigantic high-rise projects that they have on the edges of French cities." Mr. Schäuble added, however, that Germany needed to "improve integration, especially of young people," if violence is to be avoided.[65]
  •  Iran - The Iranian minister of foreign affairs has demanded that France treat its minorities with respect and protect their human rights. [66]
  •  Italy - Opposition leader Romano Prodi called on the Italian government to take urgent action, telling reporters: "We have the worst suburbs in Europe. I don't think things are so different from Paris. It's only a matter of time." [67]
  •  Libya - The leader of Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi spoke with French President Jacques Chirac by telephone and offered to help with the situation.[68]
  •  Russia - Deputy Speaker of the Russian Duma and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Vladimir Zhirinovsky claims the riots were sparked by the American CIA to "weaken Europe".[69]
  •  Senegal - The Senegalese president, Abdoulaye Wade, at the time on a visit to Paris, reacted to the events by declaring that France must "dissolve the ghettos, and integrate all Africans asking to be integrated." [70]
  •  Turkey - The Turkish prime minister named the French prohibition of headscarves in schools to be one of the reasons for the upsurge of violence in the banlieues. He stated this in an interview with the Turkish newspaper Milliyet. [71] Turkey has similar laws. When the French Prime Minister de Villepin was queried about Erdoğan's statement, he replied "C'est sans rapport", meaning "It is not related." [72]
  •  United States - State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, asked to comment directly on the riots, said it was a French internal issue, and added, "certainly, as anybody would, we mourn the loss of life in these kinds of situations. But, again, these are issues for the French people and the French government to address." [73].

References

See also

  • La Haine (Hatered) A film about suburban violence in France, released in 1995.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paris suburb riots.
Wikinews has related news:

Photographs

  • [90] Map of affected areas as of November 7th

Editorials

Eyewitness blog reports

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