France 2007, Battle for the Elysée: Trapped in squalor, young voters long for a candidate to give them hope
After the riots, people in the Paris suburbs believe they can change the face of the nation
Angelique Chrisafis in Clichy sous Bois
Thursday March 29, 2007
The Guardian
Natalie Kouyate approached the graffiti-covered entrance of her decaying tower-block just as a large rat darted past the overflowing bins painted with “Fuck Nicolas Sarkozy”.
In the lift to the 14th floor flat she shares with her parents and pinscher dog the stench of fetid water rose from the puddles around her feet. Often she is scared the leaks in the lift shaft will electrocute her so she braves the damp, graffitied stairwell, past doors covered with steel sheeting to keep out squatters and addicts. Sometimes the water supply cuts out completely for a week or so, or there is no electricity.
On her balcony Ms Kouyate, a history graduate who dreams of working in television, looked out over the high-rises to the sound of the thumping exhaust pipes of joy-riding teenagers below. She remembered watching the flames from burning cars as local teenagers battled police for weeks when riots that started here in Clichy sous Bois spread across the country 18 months ago, in the worst mainland unrest for 40 years. But on Bastille day she loves pulling a deckchair on to the balcony to watch the fireworks across the Paris skyline.
“Paris is so close but this is another world,” she said looking over the notorious La Forestière estate. “Nationalism is taking centre stage in the presidential election debate. They’re saying love France or leave it. We might live in a hinterland, but we’re French. What do we have to do to prove we love France too?”
France has not yet come to terms with the riots that swept its decaying suburban housing estates in autumn 2005. The crumbling tower blocks wedged beyond ring roads outside Paris and other cities are still a microcosm of France in crisis: unemployment often reaches 40%, residents face racism, discrimination, poverty and housing Ms Kouyate described as “unfit for human inhabitation”. More than a year after the rioting in Clichy there is still no local police station, no unemployment office and only one park bench. The housing estates are a festering sore nagging away at the presidential campaign. As candidates discuss national identity, a feeling remains that rioting could flare up again if a spark is lit.
Yesterday central Paris woke up to violent images of rampaging youths and riot police firing tear gas at the the Gare du Nord train station after an eight hour-long battle over a fare dodger. Police said a 33-year-old man with a string of previous convictions had attacked staff who asked him to show his ticket. Youths at the station said police had assaulted the man and broken his hand. Hundreds fought running battles with police, setting alight bins and smashing shops. Thirteen people were arrested and the new interior minister condemned youths for what he called “guerrilla warfare”.
The Gare du Nord is the gateway to the arduous journeys out to the run-down suburbs, which one resident on the estates said formed a “Berlin wall” between the Paris of the rich and the poor. In recent weeks the presidential candidates have become more than ever aware of that frontier. In the wake of the riots record numbers of young people have registered to vote on the housing estates, pushing the electorate to its highest number in 25 years, forming a potentially powerful swing vote. But thousands of the new suburban voters are undecided and could crucially tip the balance in the election’s final weeks.
The centrist François Bayrou seized the photo-opportunity of taking public transport to a poor suburb north of Paris, lampooning the state for being “ever present” in middle class France and permanently absent from the poorest centres of urban decay. The socialist Ségolène Royal travelled to Clichy sous Bois to sign a youth association’s manifesto for change on the estates.
But the rightwing former interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy - referred to by many on the estates as “public enemy number one” who “talks like an African dictator” - is still loathed for his comments that young residents were a “rabble” that should be cleaned away with a “power hose”. Although he has attended carefully prepared meetings with selected young people around France he has not yet dared a public walkabout in Clichy sous Bois, prompting his critics to ask how France could vote for a potential president afraid to travel his own country.
In Villemomble, north of Paris, Yves Munguama, 23, a well-dressed economics student and head of a youth group, stood on a patch of wasteland that was a library before it was burnt down during the riots of 2005. The view from his family’s high-rise flat was made up of train lines, noisy dual carriageways and a patchwork of tower block windows. “We live cooped up like chickens in cages,” he said. “The new young voters are hugely motivated to turn out because of growing racism and discrimination.” He and other black or Arab young men on his estate were told by local employers there was no work, only to find white friends were offered interviews.
Mr Munguama, who is French, had managed to get a part-time job as a security guard in a bank but his employers told him to change his surname on his name badge as its African sound would offend customers.
Youry Nozius, 23, a business studies student, was depressed by a survey last week that showed 30% of French people admitted they were racist. Many of the young students on the estates are learning English and dream of escaping to what Mr Munguama called the Eldorado of south London, where he had seen British Asians “with high positions in banks. It was amazing.” But they had not decided on their vote.
At the offices of AC Le Feu, a community association set up after the riots to encourage young people to vote, Fatima Hani, a single mother, was disturbed by the patriotic debates over flag-waving and “integrating” immigrants which had taken over the election debate. Like the dozen or so young voters wearing “To vote is to exist” T-shirts in the foyer, she was undecided. She had travelled the estates of France with the association.
“We saw a lot of first-time voters, who I seriously think will turn up at the ballot box and change everything in France,” she said. “I’m French, my daughter is French. We don’t want to hear someone ask us: what is your origin? That’s the message we’re trying to send. But the reason it’s so hard for people on the estates to decide who to vote for is that the candidates don’t really represent us. So far, there’s no one we truly identify with.”
This article originally appeared in The Guardian.
Candidates in France seize on Paris clash
By Katrin Bennhold
Published: March 28, 2007
International Herald Tribune
PARIS: France’s top presidential candidates seized on a new campaign issue Wednesday after the police fought gangs of youths for seven hours at a railroad station here. Shops were destroyed, the pall of tear gas filled the air of the Gare du Nord and 13 people were arrested.
Described as “urban guerrilla warfare” by the new interior minister, Francois Baroin, the incident was a reminder of the tensions still simmering 18 months after rioting swept immigrant neighborhoods across France and foreshadowed the task ahead for the candidate who is elected president in May.
The police said the trouble began Tuesday afternoon when an illegal immigrant from Congo jumped a turnstile in the Métro and then tried to punch a transportation agent who demanded to see his ticket. The Gare du Nord, where Eurostar trains travel to London and Brussels, is also the main station for trains to the troubled suburbs northeast of Paris.
When security forces intervened and arrested the man, the police said, 200 to 300 youths joined a rampage that lasted until nearly midnight, attacking officers with metal bars, smashing shop windows in an underground commercial center, injuring eight ticket agents and a police officer, and shouting slogans against Nicolas Sarkozy, the presidential front-runner.
By midnight, 13 people had been taken into custody, among them five minors and the 32-year-old Congolese man, who, the police asserted, had a long record of criminal activity
Sarkozy, the candidate of the center-right who resigned Monday as interior minister to focus on his campaign, called the violence unacceptable and congratulated the police for “doing their job.”
“I want to tell the French people that I will not be on the side of fraudsters, cheats, dishonest people,” Sarkozy said. “When individuals come to the rescue of someone who is committing fraud, that is particularly unacceptable, and I hope that the justice system will firmly sanction people who behave like that.”
The Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, who is running second in the opinion polls, said the incident showed that Sarkozy had failed as interior minister. “In five years with a right-wing government that has made crime its main campaign issue, you can see that it’s a failure all the way,” she said on CanalPlus television.
François Bayrou, a centrist, also took aim at Sarkozy. “It is very important to end this climate of perpetual confrontation between police and some citizens,” he said.
There has been sporadic violence in housing projects in some suburbs since the 2005 riots, but the events Tuesday were the worst unrest in the city itself since mass demonstrations over a proposed labor law degenerated into street fighting last spring.
In nearly four years as France’s “No. 1 cop,” Sarkozy built a reputation as a hard-line crime buster. His tough response to the riots was criticized by his opponents, who said he was stoking the unrest. But he was praised by others for preventing bloodshed and when the violence ended his approval ratings surged.
The incident Tuesday moved to the top of the agenda in a fast-moving presidential campaign in which shifting opinion and a high number of undecided voters has kept suspense high.
The candidates first concentrated on economic issues, then “national identity” emerged as a key issue, with all parties stressing their own versions of patriotism. Immigration moved back into the limelight last week when the director of a primary school was detained for trying to protect an illegal immigrant whose grandchild was threatened with expulsion from France.
This article originally appeared in the International Herald Tribune.
