Revolt of the Poor in France

An explosive mixture of poverty, unemployment, youth exclusion and institutional racism – why what is happening in France is a warning to all of Europe.

At the end of March, the official visit of King Charles III to France had to be canceled due to social unrest caused by the pension reform that was imposed by the government of Emmanuel Macron.

Just three months later, the French president was forced to reschedule an official visit to Germany from last night to tomorrow because of the riots caused by the death last Tuesday in Nader by police fire of a 17-year-old teenager of Maghreb origin who refused to obey an order to stop his car.

In the north of France, near the city of Maubeuge pic.twitter.com/VkgrlVFarc

— S p r i n t e r F a c t o r y (@Sprinterfactory) July 2, 2023

France seems to be going through crisis after crisis with short periods of apparent calm, and it doesn’t take much to see Marine Le Pen smiling. Now what is happening in the country is exactly what ultra-right European parties have been talking about for many years.

The latest crisis, which some have already called “the uprising of the unfortunates,” seemed to be showing signs of calm over the weekend. However, it appears that this was only the beginning.

The situation with immigrants from African countries in France has been brewing for many years in a row. The “bungalow riot”, which was sparked by the electric shocks of two teenagers who were hiding from the police, although they did nothing wrong, subsided and then flared up again in 2005, dragging on for several months.

On Saturday, July 1, Nael Merzuka’s grandmother called for calm. “To those who rebel, I say stop it!” she said in an interview with BFMTV 24 hours after his funeral.

https://twitter.com/bhargav_sonu72/status/1675708943404769281

“They used Nael as an excuse”
“Stop breaking windows, stop breaking schools, buses. They used Nael as an excuse. Stop it, mothers ride in buses, mothers walk in the street,” the teenager’s grandmother said, expressing confidence in France’s justice and assuring that she accuses 38- the summer cop who killed her grandson, not all of his colleagues.

It was a particularly sweet message for the government, which is trying not to repeat the mistakes of Nicolas Sarkozy, who served as interior minister in 2005, with a series of provocative statements, and equally condemns both the death of Nael and the unrest it caused. But he avoids discussing the troubled relationship between the police and the slum dwellers. “The charges were not brought against the national police, but against a specific policeman,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmann said.

The UN, of course, urged France on Friday to take seriously the problems of racism and racial discrimination in the ranks of law enforcement agencies. But the country’s Foreign Ministry called the complaint “absolutely unfounded.” As historian Cedric Mass commented to Reuters, “The riots in the US and UK in the 1960s and 1980s led to profound police reforms. In France? Nothing, for 40 years.”

Given the power of police unions, the government’s need for law enforcement, the official status of the French Republic as a country that “does not distinguish colors” and therefore refuses to recognize the role that racial factors can play, few people think there is hope to change the 2017 law, which expanded rules for the use of weapons by police even outside of self-defense.

https://twitter.com/remnantman1/status/1675740926658990082

Warning

On the night from Saturday to Sunday, 719 arrests and detentions were made throughout France, compared with 1311 the night before and 875 on the night of Thursday to Friday. “The night passed more calmly, thanks to the decisive actions of the forces of order,” said a pleased Darmanan, referring to the deployment of a total of 45,000 police and armored vehicles.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, however, expressed his “concern” about yesterday’s events in France, saying that he was “convinced that the head of the French state will find means to quickly improve the situation.” He’s not the only one watching with concern: more than 100 arrests were made in Brussels on Friday night following protests over Nael’s death. Seven more arrests, six of them minors, were made on Saturday evening in Lausanne after vandalism in shops.

Один из французских бунтовщиков сделал фото "Джорджа Флойда" наоборот, где выступил в роли полицейского, а силовику досталось роль того, кто не может дышать…

Фото уже становится хитом в BLM-аудитории в США. pic.twitter.com/nrpmmp3uoK

— Athens News (@russianathens) July 3, 2023

The warning, published in an editorial in the Observer newspaper yesterday, seems to have worried many: “Poverty, ghetto-like suburbs, unemployment, disability and social exclusion are problems facing young people in many developed countries. When to this dangerous mixture added chronic unresolved institutional racism, it is not surprising that uncontrolled explosions occur. What is happening in France is a warning to all of us.”

https://twitter.com/its_Ahmad_Word/status/1675741118195982336

It should be noted that, according to the authorities, a third of those arrested and detained in France today are minors, they are only 12 years old.

In conclusion, instead of the manipulation of events inevitably resorted to by extremes in France, when part of the radical left refuses to call for calm, and part of the right, like the far right in general, is already happily beating the drums of “civil war”, let’s make some statements, made by Monde teachers working in French bungalows: “When I heard about the death of Nael, I had a feeling that a flame was escaping from a barrel of gunpowder.”

https://twitter.com/hilotfe/status/1675652383202856960

“Police violence is part of the lives of these children, they don’t see the police as protection.” “This is a stigmatized and ghettoized population where bitterness and humiliation give way to rage.” “We’re trying to instill in them republican values ​​- ‘freedom, equality, fraternity’, but students tell us they don’t live by any of those three words.”

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