In November 2005, suburbs of French cities descended into 17 nights of violence and rioting, triggered by the deaths of two boys from immigrant backgrounds in Paris, electrocuted in a power substation after being chased by police. Almost 3,000 people were arrested as a result of the riots, with the residents of France’s poorest suburbs citing police intimidation, high unemployment and a lack of opportunities as the causes of the violence.
Fast forward to 2017, and history is at risk of repeating itself. The horrific rape of a black man on February 2 at the hands of police in the Parisian suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois has made headlines around the world. Identified only as Theo, the 22-year-old youth worker claims police penetrated his anus with a baton, causing injuries so severe that he required emergency surgery and remains hospitalized.
French President Francois Hollande visits Theo, who required major surgery after his arrest, when he claims a police officer sodomized him with his truncheon. Paris, February 7, 2017. /CFP Photo
Despite the arrest of the four officers involved, one of whom has been charged with aggravated rape, the police have denied intentionally raping the victim. The incident has caused outrage nationwide, with protests against police brutality reported across the country. Theo also claims he was beaten, racially abused and spat on by the four officers.
"The police rape. The police kill innocents." Signs held up during a protest in the Paris suburb of Bobigny on February 11, 2017. /CFP Photo
Violent demonstrations
Demonstrations turned violent in the Parisian suburb of Bobigny over the weekend, leading to 37 arrests. Cars were burnt out, windows smashed and objects thrown at police, after what had been a peaceful protest by 2,000 people descended into chaos.
Further controversy occurred after an official statement by the CRS, the French riot police, claimed that their officers had rescued a young girl from a vehicle next to a bin on fire in Bobigny. This was instantly denied by eyewitnesses, who all insisted that 16-year-old Emmanuel Toula, who had been taking part in the protest, saved her from the vehicle. The local police prefecture later commended his act of bravery on Twitter.
Police fired tear gas after projectiles were thrown and bins and cars set alight, following a protest against police brutality in Bobigny, Paris, February 11, 2017. /CFP Photo
So is France on the verge of a repeat of 2005? So far, the riots have been on nowhere near the same scale – those two and a half weeks over a decade ago saw 200 million euros of damage and nearly 9,000 cars destroyed, in cities across France. However, the root causes of discontent among France’s poor and ignored immigrant population are still there, they have been there for decades and the candidates for this year’s presidential election are clearly not looking at them as a priority during their campaigns.
Life in the banlieue
“Banlieue” is a French word meaning suburb, but it has picked up negative connotations in recent years, suggesting hotbeds of crime, drugs and unemployment, in deprived ghettos populated by people of largely immigrant backgrounds.
Since hard-hitting urban drama La Haine won a standing ovation at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the plight of the residents of France’s banlieues has been in the spotlight. However, any hope of recognition in the form of government support has deteriorated with a struggling economy and the recent emergence of radical terrorism and ISIL. Mohamed Merah, who launched a campaign of terror in 2012 targeting Jewish people and the police, was from an immigrant background and brought up in a deprived banlieue in Marseille, where he was believed to have been radicalized. France's Interior Ministry has reported that at least 900 French citizens have attempted to join ISIL in Syria, or at least expressed a desire to travel there.
In 2005, then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy promised a hard response to rioters – insisting he would scrub the suburbs clean with a pressure hose. He went on to win the presidency in 2007.
Firefighters extinguish a car in flames in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Paris, November 3, 2005. /CFP Photo
Sarkozy may be gone, but none of the three likely candidates for France’s next president – Francois Fillon, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen – offer much hope to the banlieue residents protesting against police violence, unemployment and a lack of opportunities.
The spate of terror attacks on Paris and Nice in the last two years has seen, according to the New Yorker, “a widespread feeling, in France and elsewhere, that the killings were somehow related to the banlieues.” Pledging support for the residents of France’s most deprived suburbs is unlikely to go down well with voters elsewhere.
'A kind of fate'
On Twitter, populist and anti-immigrant Front National leader Marine Le Pen reacted to the riots in Bobigny by pledging her support for the police and saying: “No lesson has been learnt from 2005. Just thugs looking for an excuse to express their hatred for France.”
Emmanuel Macron, the centrist candidate looking to reform the economy, offered neither sympathy nor solution for the rioting, saying “#JusticePourTheo does not mean a free-pass for burning cars.”
Francois Fillon, however, may prove an unlikely bastion of hope for the banlieues. The conservative candidate had earlier called for a full investigation into the rape incident and pressed for those responsible to be punished, while also expressing his “solidarity with the police.”
On Twitter, Fillon offered no explicit response to the events in Bobigny, but on Sunday posted a reflective message on the future of France, and the prospects for its young people. “25% of the working population unemployed, 50% of whom are young people, it’s unacceptable. I refuse to see this as a kind of fate.”
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