Shock waves of a popular revolt
By Murray Smith
It is nearly two months now since France’s poor suburban neighbourhoods exploded. For three weeks they were shaken by nightly riots, in fact a revolt by youth, overwhelmingly of Arab and African origin. The primary tactic was to burn cars, thousands of which went up in smoke. They also attacked anything that symbolised authority or wealth – schools, supermarkets, car showrooms, warehouses and of course police stations.
Now that the dust has settled, we can begin to see the effects of this revolt. At the time the media referred to “the riots”. The hard-line right-wing Minster of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, referred to the young men concerned as “scum” and “rabble” and talked of “cleaning out” the estates where they live. He also said that 75 per cent of those concerned had been in trouble with the police and that the riots had “nothing spontaneous” about them but were “perfectly organised” by “gangs of yobbos” or “fundamentalists.” This sort of talk by Sarkozy and his imitators was widely echoed in the media.
But already quite a different reality has emerged. Around 3000 young people were arrested during those three weeks, half of them under 18. Several hundred have now been given prison sentences, but the statistics that emerged from the court proceedings showed that 75-80 per cent of them had no previous criminal record.
As for what happened being a revolt – it’s official. There exists in France a rather peculiar institution called “General Information” (RG). The role of the RG is to keep the government informed as to what is happening in the country, specifically anything likely to pose a threat to law and bourgeois order. Its agents spend a fair amount of their time snooping around left-wing and trade union movements to gather information. But their role is to do precisely that – gather reliable information, not engage in populist rhetoric.
In a report dated November 23rd, they had this to say: “France has experienced a form of unorganised insurrection, with the emergence (…) of a popular revolt (…) without leaders and without proposing a programme.” Just in case that wasn’t clear enough, they added: “no manipulation can be discerned which would accredit the thesis of a generalised and organised uprising” – each group of youth in each neighbourhood acted autonomously. Specifically, Islamic fundamentalists played “no role in the unleashing of violence or in its spreading.” The RG added that in fact Muslims had “every interest in a rapid return to calm to avoid amalgams.” And in fact the only intervention that came from mosques and Muslim associations during the events was to appeal for calm.
The RG also noted that the far Left “didn’t see anything coming and is fuming at not having been at the origin of such a movement.” The far Left is hardly “fuming.” But it had nothing to do with what happened for the simple reason that, like most of the rest of the French Left, it is largely absent from those poor housing estates – described by the RG as “urban ghettos of an ethnic character” – which were the centre of the revolt.
The report concluded that the strong identity felt by the young people who revolted “was not only based on their ethnic or geographical origins, but on their social condition as those excluded from French society.” They “feel penalised by their poverty, the colour of their skin and their names” and that they have an “absence of prospects” particularly in relation to work.
It is important to understand the two interlinked aspects of this revolt. It is on the one hand a social revolt, an outburst of anger and frustration against their present life in the grim and impoverished housing estates around France’s towns and cities, and against their future prospects, or the lack of them. But these young people are not just suffering the social consequences of neoliberalism. They are suffering these consequences in a way that is magnified by the racism they suffer, a racism that is endemic in French society. This racism is expressed on a social level – by discrimination in housing and employment, and in access to leisure activity. It is of course illegal but it happens anyway. It is expressed by daily contact with the police who constantly harass them.
The revolt was an expression of all that. No doubt as a form of struggle, burning cars and schools leaves a lot to be desired. But these young people have propelled the issue of their situation into the forefront of French society. Now the discriminations they suffer from are admitted by politicians and the media. And beyond that their revolt has acted as a catalyst for something that was already under way before – the raising of the “race question” in France.
This is something very difficult for French society to deal with, even on the Left. In France, you see, everyone is supposed to be equal – the idea of equality is deeply rooted in society. This has a positive side in the radical egalitarian consciousness that helps to explain the regular outbursts of revolt that have punctuated recent history. But it can also have a negative side by refusing to see really existing inequality. In particular, the idea of any separate identity is quite contrary to the ideology of the Republic. The French bourgeois republic was built in a centralised, monolithic way, including the suppression of minority nationalities and languages. Everyone is French, full stop.
One rather ironic result of this mentality is that whereas the press is full of the threat of Islamic fundamentalism and now these violent young people in the suburbs, no one actually knows exactly how many Muslims there are in France, or how many Black people, or how many second- and third generation immigrants. This is because the government refuses to collect statistics based or religion or national origin. But it is perfectly clear that although all French people are equal, some are more equal than others. And it’s a question not just of class, but also of race. France’s immigrant populations are still paying the price of the racism that was born with the slave trade and colonialism.
Coming to terms with this did not start with the revolt of this autumn, but it has sped things up. A Representative Council of Black Organisations (CRAN) has been set up, to encourage “the emergence of a black consciousness.” On the bicentenary of Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz, a collective of citizens of France’s overseas departments denounced the fact that the Emperor had restored slavery, which had been abolished by the Revolution. At the moment a broad alliance is campaigning for the repeal of a law voted by Parliament last February, which stipulates that the “positive role” of French colonialism should be taught in schools. In various ways, including inside the Socialist Party, the question of the non-representation of France’s non-white citizens in its political institutions is being posed. Sarkozy had to cancel a planned visit to France’s departments in the Caribbean in the face of widespread protests.
All this raises many debates. The self-organisation of the oppressed is not part of French political culture, not even, and perhaps especially not, on the Left. The idea of any specific consciousness, other than a common social and political consciousness, is seen as divisive, even by some of the victims of racism. An article in Le Monde spoke of them being torn “between a desire for integration and a demand for recognition of their specificity”. It did not seem to occur to the journalist that the recognition of a specific identity, a specific history or a specific oppression might be the pre-condition for real integration.
The Left is very much absent from the areas where the revolt broke out, which are often described as a “political desert.” This is misleading. There are in fact many associations active in these quarters, sometimes of a religious character, sometimes not. But there is little contact with the French Left, and some mutual suspicion. This has to be overcome. A polarisation is taking place in French society. On the one hand racist and reactionary ideas have real support, as is seen by the renewed activity of the far Right since the revolt and widespread support for Sarkozy’s positions. This has to be countered and it cannot be countered without building an alliance between the still largely white Left and those who are on the receiving end of racism. There are some positive signs. There have been demonstrations against the state of emergency, supported by the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), sections of the Communist party and many associations. The campaign against the law on “positive colonialism” is supported by a front that, almost uniquely, goes from the right wing of the Socialist Party, via the Communist Party and the Greens, to Workers’ Struggle (LO) and the LCR. But much more needs to be done and the radical Left has a particular responsibility to close the gap between itself and the non-white population in France.
