After the riots, Macron must fix a broken France
With Marine Le Pen’s shadow looming large, it will be
no easy task healing the rift between French institutions and youth in the
banlieues.
BY CLEA
CAULCUTT
JULY 4,
2023 4:00 AM CET
PARIS —
France is slowly catching its breath after days of large-scale urban unrest but
a greater challenge looms for President Emmanuel Macron: How to tackle the root
problems the riots have exposed.
Macron has
walked a thin line between showing empathy and sending out a message of
toughness after a police officer shot and killed teenager Nahel M. last week,
leading to days of riots. He flooded the streets with police officers in an
effort to contain the violence.
This
weekend there were fewer arrests than on previous nights and the unrest appears
to be waning, at least temporarily.
But the
series of incidents have fanned the flames around police brutality and the
treatment of racial minorities into a broader, violent rejection of French
institutions.
Overnight
on Saturday, attackers rammed a car into the house of the local mayor in
L’Haÿ-les-Roses, a suburb south of Paris, injuring the official’s wife as she
tried to flee with her young children.
Elsewhere
in France, the violence triggered by the teenager’s death has targeted many
symbols of the French Republic: schools, police stations, libraries and other
public buildings.
“An
unprecedented movement has hit territories that were not previously affected
[by violence]. Public buildings were damaged which was not the case during the
last wave of protests in 2005,” said a French government official, who was
granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues more openly, referring to an
outbreak of violence that rocked France’s banlieues for weeks in 2005.
Over the
past few days, Macron has sought to strike a delicate balance between showing
compassion and resolve. He has described the shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M.
as he was fleeing the police last week as “inexcusable” and “inexplicable.” But
Macron has slammed the riots as “the unacceptable manipulation of a death of a
teenager,” as well.
On Tuesday,
he is expected to meet mayors from more than 200 towns and cities hit by
violence. The aim of the meeting is to gather first-hand accounts from local
officials, work on solutions and relay that the government is backing local
officials.
“The
president wants to listen,” the French official said.
After
cutting short his visit to a European summit last week, Macron tried to show he
is at the helm of the country, regularly calling crisis cabinet meetings, and
issuing orders to his prime minister and ministers. On Saturday, he called off
a long-planned state visit to Germany.
Permanently
in crisis mode
The roster
of meetings at the Elysée Palace is a familiar sight and a sign that the
government is in crisis mode — once again.
The French
president has barely emerged from a deep political crisis over pension reforms
this spring and his government now is faced with more turmoil. Macron’s first
term was equally rocky, as he faced Yellow Jackets protests, the COVID-19
pandemic and the ever-present threat of terrorism in France.
Macron has
accumulated “difficult, painful crisis situations” that have “perplexed” the
outside world, said Bruno Cautrès, a politics researcher with the Sciences Po
institute.
“It’s as if
France was a pressure cooker, [each crisis] reveals tensions, a conflict in
society, tensions over the respect owed to our institutions … Our country is
constantly invoking Republican values, but it appears entire segments of the
population don’t feel this matters to them,” he said.
The
outpouring of shock and anger over the death of Nahel M., who was of North
African descent, has also forced many in France to do some soul-searching over
issues of discrimination, integration, and crime in immigrant-heavy suburbs
around French cities.
Public
pressure to more closely examine French policing practices and allegations of
racism in the security forces beyond re-examining rules of engagement is
mounting. In 2017, for example, police officers were given the right to shoot
in several hypothetical scenarios, including when a driver refuses to stop and
is deemed a risk to life.
Beyond
alleged discrimination by the police, fixing the growing rift between the
suburbs’ disadvantaged youth and French institutions will likely require more
money for policies aimed at addressing root causes and reducing social
inequalities in areas such as education and social housing.
But
addressing issues in the banlieues is difficult at a time when the government
is attempting to reduce spending. After resisting calls to back down in the
face of peaceful protests over his flagship pensions reforms, Macron reaching
for the checkbook shortly after the recent days’ protests might be seen as
rewarding rioters.
The need to
reconcile the country and embody law and order at a time when his margins for
maneuver are limited after losing a parliamentary majority last year is no
small task for Macron
He will
have to keep a sharp eye on opposition parties as crime, identity and
immigration — long issues the far-right has campaigned on — take center stage.
If far-right leader Marine Le Pen has held back from fueling a backlash against
rioters, sticking to her strategy of embracing mainstream politics, her trusted
lieutenant Jordan Bardella has led the charge against “criminals” who owe
“everything to the Republic.”
The recent
unrest had exposed “frailties” that could “encourage a populist discourse,” the
same government official admitted.
“[Our]
political response must be a reasonable one, that addresses the reality and
daily lives of the French,” he added. That’s easier said than done.
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