NEWS
ANALYSIS
Society is increasingly divided between a
law-and-order faction and those who see racism in a pattern of police killings
or mistreatment of minorities.
Roger Cohen
By Roger
Cohen
Reporting
from Paris
June 30,
2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/world/europe/france-riots-police-shooting.html
President
Emmanuel Macron has often denounced a new “incivility” in France and called for
mutual respect. But the deadly shooting of a teenager of Algerian-Moroccan
descent by a police officer has only deepened the discord, as the government
scrambles to contain the violent fallout from viral images of the death of
Nahel M.
The broad
initial denunciation of the shooting on Tuesday morning, including Mr. Macron’s
description of it as “inexcusable,” has given way, as violence has mounted, to
tribal expressions of allegiance, whether to a law-and-order camp or to a
movement of those who see ethnic profiling and racism in a pattern of police
killings or manhandling of minorities.
The fatal
confrontation during a traffic stop in the western suburb of Nanterre has
become a kind of Rorschach test of a divided French society. Whatever French
people see in the ink blots seems to be increasingly ugly and irreconcilable.
In a
statement on Friday, Alliance Police Nationale, the largest police union,
denounced the “savage hordes” and “vermin” behind the burning of 2,000 cars and
the looting of several stores in riots on Thursday night that led to the
arrests of over 800 people. Another police union, Unsa, joined Alliance in what
it said was a call to “combat” in a “war” that “the government must take
account of.”
Left-wing
lawmakers denounced the police statement as a call to civil war and a threat of
sedition. “Those who want calm should not throw oil on the fire,” Jean-Luc
Mélenchon, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed movement, said.
Mr. Macron,
after a second crisis cabinet meeting this week, said the violence had “no
legitimacy,” was fed by social media and involved copycat violence from young
people playing video games that had “intoxicated” them. “It’s the
responsibility of parents to keep them at home,” he said. “It’s not the state’s
job to act in their place.”
The
gathering protests over three nights have reflected widespread rage, especially
among young people from low-income immigrant communities, at a shooting they
see as reflecting endemic racism in France’s law enforcement agencies. Gérald
Darmanin, the interior minister, announced that 45,000 police officers and
gendarmes would be deployed Friday night.
“I was
shocked but in the end not that much,” said Ilham Ksiyer, a 28-year-old medical
student as he waited for a bus in Nanterre. “I don’t have much hope.”
Olivier
Klein, the housing minister, told BFMTV on Friday that “there is this
persistent resentment with a certain number of young people who feel
forgotten.”
His words
carried particular weight. Mr. Klein is the former mayor of the impoverished
suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, where Zyed Benna, 17, and Bouna Traoré, 15, were
electrocuted in 2005 as they were pursued by the police.
Since then,
18 years of intermittent French troubles have elapsed. Poor schools, drugs,
delinquency and dismal prospects in the suburbs where many French Algerians and
other minorities live have fed a festering resentment that does not seem to
abate, whatever the improvements state investments have brought.
“It’s blown
up in my neighborhood,” said Roman Challe, aged 20, who is studying to be a
roofer and said he lived near Nahel. “They shouldn’t burn schools, though, but
police stations. When they burn schools it’s kids that suffer.”
The
president, who is scheduled to leave for a two-day state visit to Germany on
Sunday, needs to restore order fast enough to avoid a declaration of a state of
emergency that would be seen as an admission that his government has lost
control of the situation.
The police
have been angered by the swift and indefinite detention of the officer who
fired the shot and a prosecutor’s decision to place him under investigation on
charges of voluntary homicide. They and several right-wing leaders have seen a
rush to judgment.
“It is
evident that the death of a young man can leave absolutely nobody indifferent,”
declared Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally party and a
perennial presidential candidate. “But I am astonished that the president of
the Republic does not leave the judicial system the time to do its work.”
Stéphane
Séjourné, the leader of Mr. Macron’s Renaissance party, which is the largest in
Parliament but does not have an absolute majority, issued a statement that
appeared to reflect the resolute posture against violent protesters now adopted
by the government, after its initial outrage at the shooting.
“The fault
of an individual cannot equal casting dishonor and shame on 250,000 police
officers and gendarmes who, every day, risk their lives to protect and serve
the Republic,” he said. “I want to express my gratitude, my trust and my
support at a time when 250 of them were injured last night.”
Mr.
Séjourné attacked the left for refusing to condemn the violence, accusing them
of fomenting hatred. But David Guiraud, a lawmaker with France Unbowed, said in
a Tweet: “I do not call for calm, I call for justice. The people who live in
troubled neighborhoods know. They know that without the video, the police would
have lied, and nothing would have happened.”
There were
13 fatal shootings during traffic stops in 2022, the highest number recorded in
a single year, but so far none has led to any convictions.
Mr.
Macron’s office disputed the notion that the violence was the direct result of
widespread social anger.
“These are
not neighborhoods that were abandoned and that are rising up,” said an official
from the French presidency, who in keeping with French rules could not be
publicly identified. “The residents of these neighborhoods are the first
victims” of violence caused by a minority, the official said.
Mr.
Macron’s office pointed to his policies that aim to reduce inequalities — like
splitting up overcrowded classes in schools in disenfranchised neighborhoods,
which his government did during his first term, or guaranteeing that middle
schools in those areas stay open later to help struggling students, a promise
that he made just this week in Marseille.
But, the
official acknowledged, “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
Nahel, a
fan of rap and motorbikes, was raised alone by his mother in Nanterre. He had a
few minor run-ins with the police involving reckless driving and failure to
comply with traffic stops, but had recently joined an association called “Ovale
Citoyen” that helps youths from difficult backgrounds through involvement in
sport — in this case rugby.
“For me,
Nahel was an example of a kid from an underprivileged neighborhood, unschooled,
sometimes borderline but in no way a big-time bandit, who really wanted to make
his way,” Jeff Puech, the president of the association, told the Sud Ouest
daily.
For Mr.
Macron, Nahel’s death has come at an awkward moment. As a wave of protests
against his decision to raise the retirement age began to die down in April, he
promised that within 100 days he would galvanize France through a series of
measures, including tax cuts for the middle class and massive investment in
vocational schools. Those 100 days will be up on July 14, Bastille Day, the
French national holiday.
Perhaps
France’s divisions are now just too deep, and the resentment toward Mr. Macron
from those left behind in France too acute, for healing to be possible. When
the president tried this week, even before the shooting, to tell people in La
Busserine, a poor northern suburb of Marseille, about his revival program for
the city, some shouted him down.
Aurelien
Breeden and Juliette Guéron-Gabrielle contributed reporting.
Roger Cohen
Roger Cohen
is the Paris bureau chief. He has worked for The Times for 33 years and has
served as a foreign correspondent, foreign editor and an Opinion columnist. In
2023, he won a Pulitzer Prize and George Polk Award as part of Times teams
covering the war in Ukraine. More about Roger Cohen
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