The haven for Parisiens: Distance for some, censure for others

Pascal Fonquiernie, a 46 year old real estate agent working in the chic Marais quarter of Paris who caters mainly to Americans, feels close to what is happening, but in a frustrated, practical way.  His business is suffering.  “The media is having a field day,” he complains, making it seem so violent so as to cause waves of cancellations in the hotels and the by-the-week rental market (normally a big draw here).  “Really, next to an average city in the US, Paris is so non-violent that when something like this happens it’s big and no one knows how to communicate it.”  The discrepancy doesn’t stop there.  As Erica Gilles, a 27 year-old graduate student from Princeton studying here for the year claims, “The wording ‘riots in Paris’ is misleading.  It doesn’t make sense to Americans that they would be rioting in Westchester, a suburb, and not in the Bronx, in the city.  Cities are set up differently here.”  I shared with her an amused eye-roll when she mentioned how she was contacted unnecessarily and often by family and friends back home. 

Pascal however is not that amused.  He also serves the gay travel community, a part of society notable for its propensity to travel.  As we were talking he wanted to make it clear that “no one should feel even potentially threatened by these uprising, since they are in no way of a homophobic nature.”  This is true, since the issues here clearly lie along different minority lines, having more to do with immigrants and level of income (or lack thereof).  And Mr. Fonquiernie does concede something. “It’s true that this event calls attention to a second France that nonetheless exists.”

 “This has been a problem for the last 30 years,” says an executive, 36, at France Telecom.  And what has changed after all that time?  Nothing.  “This is something that no one has wanted to acknowledge.”  He cites the glaring lack of money in many of these suburban neighborhoods, filled with what are dubbed cités, the French word for multi-building clusters of low-income housing, or projects, that house multitudes of ethnicities that make up France’s immigrant population.  “There is no money for reconstruction.”   Although he admits feeling close to what is happening, he maintains that “France is not on fire and bleeding,” when asked if the media’s varying depictions have been faithful or accurate.  “People love show,” he says, readily agreeing that perhaps certain representations made it seem that the very security of the country was crumbling.

However a group of young professionals at a media company take the idea a step further.

“Of course French media amplifies, just as others do – it’s always blowing things out of proportion,” says a TV researcher, 28.  “But it is also the media that gave these groups attention, and they are proud to see themselves on TV for what happened.”  For him and many others, the media served as a form of “encouragement.” 

When confronted with the question of distance, this group says that they feel so far that it almost seems “unreal.”  They feel this way, surely, since they have not been confronted with rioting themselves, in their own neighborhoods.  A young woman even claims that “they are spread out and few, afraid to come to Paris.”  It remains to be seen if she is correct, after today’s demonstrations.   

But some feel quite differently.  Delila Rehailia, a 33 year-old French-Algerian woman working for an American company in an affluent part of the capitol, feels much closer to the rioting, as she lives in an area which has seen violence for the past few weeks.  “I have heard helicopters revolving every night since this started, and I have seen the burning of cars,” she says, all from her own bedroom.  She says she has sympathy for those “who are trying,” but those who provoke through violence she does not support or identify with.  She herself has had to deal with racism all her life, never feeling quite French, even though she was born here.  “The aggression has been in the air for a long time,” she admits.  Even so, she remains adamantly against this racially-charged revolt, since for her, violence is not an option in order to communicate.  She agrees that this has been a social fact for a long time, “and they’ve had enough.” 

The question becomes, when you have enormous difficulties in getting a job, feel isolated from a more prosperous society, and the authorities are not attentive enough to even be present, what do you do?  A younger pair of Algerian-French friends also feels very close to the issue, but unlike the above, they sympathize with those who feel that they have no other choice to make themselves heard.  Lamia Benpkhayap and Sabrina Belmimoun, both 21, are students who are involved in ethnic activities through their families, and they still live with their parents much of the year while trying to get by in school.  Sabrina lives in an area currently under a curfew, and states simply that she is “for” the efforts on the part of the youth, albeit efforts of a violent nature, to change the way they are treated.  This contrasts with Ms. Rehailia, who suggests an alternative answer: “to establish a group or representative faction that can have a real voice in the government.”

Like others, Ms. Rehailia’s main frustration comes from the lack of care on the part of the police, whose presence in several rougher, ethnic areas (such as the’93’ or ‘78’, which are nicknames stemming from the French equivalent of the zip code system) has been weak or simply non-existent for a long time.  France has mixed views on its police force, but generally looks down upon it.  “There is a partial reputation of racism in the French police,” says an IT executive in Caen, to the northwest of Paris.  “Before, the police were effective, but now local stations are closed in the rougher areas.”  This is indicative of a larger problem involving the government, and shows a political lack of interest or neglect.  

The young professionals make a darker case for the police: “They are not necessarily considered racist, but that might be because there is a high level of racism in this country in general.”  As proof they describe how the neighborhoods in the poorer suburbs and schools therein create the main problem – the classification of students, just like neighborhoods, creates these ‘cité ghettos’.  “Good schools are only in good areas, with whites.”

But for the IT executive, the problem stops long before.  “I feel very far away.  Even 1,000 cars being burned in a single night is small compared to the size of France.”  And again, the idea of this being a rather old problem comes up.  “Things like this happen every New Year’s, as a form of mischief,” referring to the burning of cars as a well-used sign of unrest through the decades.  And he doubts the effectiveness of this behavior: “because they create violence and chaos in their own neighborhoods, they don’t accomplish anything but an increase in their own unhappiness. And retaliation between suburbs.”

Valentin Spassov, a 26 year old Bulgarian immigrant, agrees.  “This is ‘normal’ – cars were burning way before this recent explosion on the news.  It’s a reality, but it’s not the whole reality.”  In spite of the fact of his own immigrant status, he feels far from what is happening.  But not without a certain amount of reproach for the authorities: “With immigrants in France, it’s like signing a contract.  These are the rules, and if you don’t like them, leave.”  The implication being, even if the rules are not great.

This amounts to a complex combination of snowballs that have been left unattended for decades.  Considering the amount of time that has passed, one wonders if it will worsen, and whether people in unaffected areas will take the situation more to heart.  “Their goal here was simply to show that they exist,” says the Telecom exec.  And if the masses involved don’t feel that they are getting their point across, what then?  “The risk remains that this will worsen.  French people are not afraid though, because nothing has happened to directly face them.”