A riot means that robbing cars and burning them, or burning trash boxes, and public buildings, and collisions with police and security forces. My theme is “urban violences in modern French”, more specifically, urban violence in November 2005. The riot continued about three weeks, spread in French. And many cars were burnt. Why such violence occurred in modern French? What are its backgrounds? This is my question.
Next, to understand its background, I mention to immigration in French. Now, there are about four million immigrants in modern French. Their main roots are Maghreb and Europe. From 1960s, the number of non-European immigrants increased. A turning point is oil crisis in 1973. It caused settlement of immigrants in France.
Thinking about the riot, there are three stages. At the first stage, violence has spread to the city Clichy-sous-Bois. Next, at the second stage, violence has spread to Paris region. Finally, at the third stage, the riots spreaded to France. The peak of the riot is November 5th. 1048 cars were burnt and 395 people had police checkup. After November 5th, riots gradually calmed. Generally, it is said that most of participants were young immigrants.
Why such a big riot happened in modern France? First of all, robbing and burning cars is a fixed measure for young people. “Riot” itself has occurred since 1980s. The first riot occurred at the suburb of Lyon, in 1980s. Since that, for 25years, many riots have broken out frequently. So, robbing and burning cars is familiar to French. This is one of reason why the riot spread to France quickly, I think.
Second, a relationship between police and immigrant young people has been tense. Since 90s, an attitude of police toward immigrants has got to be severe. Accompany with it, a number of slight crimes were increased. Especially, African immigrants are seen in legal action. False accusation problems have also occurred. Police mobilization and a collision with young people is one pattern of riot beginning.I think these circumstances have possibility to be a trigger of riots.
Third, there is a problem of unemployment. In housing complexes area, a city suburb, we can find high unemployment. It shows from 30 to 50 percent in that area, while 20 percent within a city. One of the reasons is that since 70s, forms of employment have changed. Immigrants usually worked at factories. But since 70s, machines replaced labors, so labors lose their job.
Of course, there are many other backgrounds, for example, a problem of the mass media, housing problem, and so on. The backgrounds of the riot are very complex. And to solve problems is the challenge for France.
Q1: How much is the unemployment of young French people?
Answer1: In France, the government doesn’t ask the origin in research. So it’s impossible to define the rate of immigrant or of French clearly.
Prof’s comment: There is no official figure to define immigrants. So it is not easy to tell which is immigrant or not. That could be said about many countries like Australia, where many people have a dual nationality. In Japan, we are not admitted to have two nationalities. So, many countries, about the second generation, don’t distinguish where they are from. The statistics are not so easy for use of the immigrant’s case. The problem of unemployment is clearly concerned with not only overseas people. However in official statistics, it isn’t clear.
Q2: In the same year, was there another riot in other country?
A2: In Germany and Belgium, small ones, but there were.
Q3: There were some or many backgrounds, you said. Then in your graduation thesis, what element do you treat as a principal?
A3: I treated mainly relationship between police and young immigrants. But it’s so complex, so I couldn’t decide the one.
By U4 Harada
I heard that some problems of immigrants exist in France and I know the riot happened in France in 2005. I watched it on TV but her presentation was the first time to hear that there are three stages in the riot. The media always makes rioters look like just barbaric, hostile, violent, and uncivilized people. and People waching it take that in face value. So we definitely have to be careful on both sides.
By Sakamoto Yoko, U4 student