So what’s going on in the Parisian suburbs?

OK, so the French appear to be experiencing some domestic disquiet in recent days. The Guardian has some details: French youths fired at police and burned over 300 cars last night as towns around Paris experienced their worst night of violence in a week of urban unrest.’ The French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, was ...

By Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

November 3, 2005, 5:03 PM

OK, so the French appear to be experiencing some domestic disquiet in recent days. The Guardian has some details:

French youths fired at police and burned over 300 cars last night as towns around Paris experienced their worst night of violence in a week of urban unrest.’ The French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, was involved in a series of crisis meetings today following the clashes between police and immigrant groups in at least 10 poor suburbs, during which youths torched car dealerships, public buses and a school…. The violence has once more trained a spotlight on the poverty and lawlessness of France’s rundown big-city suburbs and raises questions about an immigration policy that has, in effect, created sink ghettos for mainly African minorities who suffer from discrimination in housing, education and jobs. In the north-eastern suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, gangs of youths set fire to a Renault car dealership and incinerated at least a dozen cars, a supermarket and a local gymnasium…. Today, France’s government was in crisis mode with Mr de Villepin calling a string of emergency meetings with government officials throughout the day. One was a working lunch with the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been accused of inflaming the crisis with his tough talk and police tactics. Mr Sarkozy has called troublemakers “scum” and vowed to “clean out” troubled suburbs, language that some say further alienated their residents. The unrest was triggered by last Thursday’s accidental death in Clichy-sous-Bois, five miles from Aulnay, of two African teenagers who were electrocuted while hiding in a power substation from what they believed, apparently wrongly, was police pursuit…. The minister of social cohesion, Jean-Louis Borloo, said the government had to react “firmly” but added that France must also acknowledge its failure to deal with anger simmering in poor suburbs for decades. “We cannot hide the truth: that for 30 years we have not done enough,” he told France-2 television.

[Wait a second — there’s a ministry of social cohesion in France?–ed. Well, sort of.] Comment away — but I am curious about the accuracy of the press analysis on the riots. After the reportage on Katrina, my radar is up about any exaggeration of chaos and mayhem.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

Tag: Theory