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October 25, 2006
Un An Plus Tard
A year ago the suburbs that ring Paris erupted into violence. For over a month young men poured into the streets at night and looted buildings, burned cars and clashed violently with the police. The unrest in the Banlieues eventually subsided, but the root causes were never tackled. As a result violence and unrest are still in the news today.
These suburbs are dotted with massive housing projects which house much of France's ethnic population (African and Caribbean Blacks, Arabs, Kurds, Asian, etc.) Economic and social discrimination is thus compounded by the geographic isolation of these suburbs from the urban core, resulting in the kind of ills that in the US we associate with the inner-city: Massive unemployment, discrimination and blight.
But France's Cites also suffer in other ways: Through stereotypes, and particularly those associated with the youth of the Banlieues. Recently the city north of Paris where the violence first started last year inaugurated an art exhibit to tackle this stereotyping. Clichy-sous-Bois became known to the whole world as the epicenter of the urban unrest, but it's now attempting to redefine itself with the help of some world-reknown photographers. These neighborhoods are people's homes, their community, and these snapshots attempt to show that humanity.
At the same time, the mayor of Clichy is speaking up to get the political leadership to fulfill its promise to act. A year later, little has changed for the residents of his town in terms of economic opportunity, jobs and transportation. Worst of all, the plight of the suburbs seems to have fallen on the sidelines. A telling detail: Not one of the main political leaders chose to come to Clichy-sous-Bois for this event, although they had all been invited. With the presidential campaign approaching, politicians have taken a page out of the US political playbook and are struggling to outdo each other at being "tough on crime". And I guess that means being tough on the Banlieues too. It's a real missed opportunity for France.
Posted by jessehudson at October 25, 2006 11:19 AM
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Just so you know, I thought this was a gret blog. Too bad it looks like it's hibernating...or worse.
Posted by: jeromepeters at December 11, 2006 09:55 AM
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