The question of the youth with Maghreb and African Sahel origins largely residing in the peri-suburbs of France, commonly known as "la banlieue," has emerged as an ongoing social challenge. The thorny issue of the youth in the banlieues has become a social chronic disease. French governments right and left alike have been dealing with the dilemma of the marginalized banlieues and the youth who are lost in the socio-cultural parameters of the French society and the republic at large.
What is the root cause of France's long-standing challenges? A socioeconomic problem that has morphed into a national identity crisis, contaminating public discourse in politics and intellectual spheres for decades. It has become a political tool for both right-wing and far-right parties, media outlets and the elite. Recognizing that the matter of youth, identity and immigration encompasses intricate social, historical and civilizational factors, it is clear that youth represents more than just an age group or biological stage. It is a social position intricately tied to cultural, economic and political contexts.
To better understand last week the youth revolt of the banlieues, another round of denial and neglect attitude from the French Republic has emerged, following the death of a teenager, Nahel, a 17-year-old born French citizen with Maghreb descent of a Moroccan father and an Algerian mother in Nanterre, a popular neighborhood in the center of the richest department of les Hauts-de-Seine where is located the French capital’s financial district.
This translates to the French paradox, where misery meets with luxury, in other words, when Pablo Picasso's popular social housing towers caress the skyscrapers of yuppie Europe's largest business district of La Defense quarter.
Chronologically, there were other violent events that occurred in the banlieues/suburbs in 1979, 1993, 2005 and 2023. What is new this time is the shift in the dynamic of conflicts between the youth and the authorities. It has moved to the center and is no longer a suburb issue. It is, however, a large city issue because tragic events of looting and social chaos took place in the center of Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and so on. Even in some small and medium-size cities like Blois in the center France, therefore, it’s a question of city development and public policy the governments of the French Republic should have been seriously managed instead of blaming the children of a republic that failed and still look at them as “immigrants.”
This revolt is like the previous ones. It’s the result of long-time marginalization policies and arrogant behavior, adding to the humiliation feeling that many Arabs, Blacks and Muslims in particular the youth have been getting ever since. A narrative used by the far-right to express their racism toward Muslims in general in the last three decades, particularly during the cultural and political episode of the so-called French national media: The Islamic Veil question (l’affaire du foulard Islamique) in 1989.
The year 1989 shaped and shifted the discourse of racism in France toward the Arabs and the Blacks, and toward the Muslims from its ethnic nature to its religious one. Hence the issue of French national identity was at every political debate and election, raising the question about the role of Muslims in France. Thus, it’s a matter of social justice that those youth and their parents in the suburbs are asking for more equality and don’t care about liberty and fraternity as they are worried nowadays about their safety and security.
In the meantime, the police is an institution that has been pretty much anti-Arab and anti-Muslim because of the rise of far-right parties like Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) and Eric Zemmour's Reconquest.
Recently, another controversial far-right figure has entered the arena of xenophobic and hate speech in France: Jean Messiha. Messiha, born Hossam Botros Messiha in Cairo, Egypt, has become the voice and face of racists in the French media. He recently raised over 1.5 million euros in an online fund for the family of a police officer who shot and killed Nahel in the Nanterre neighborhood.
The extremist parties, media and elite are shaping the anti-Arab and Muslim immigrant narrative and the dialectical relation between police and society in France. So, the shooting of Nahel last week by the police in the Nanterre neighborhood was only the drop that overflowed the vase because the French police have a terrible record, dealing with non-white people for instance, the infamous one is the 1961 Parisian police as Algerian Liberation War of Independence was nearing its end, the Paris police brutally repressed a demonstration of French Algerians in the heart of the city. Examples include the infamous repression of a demonstration by French Algerians in 1961, the shooting death of a French-Algerian student during a student march in Paris in 1986, and the deaths of Ziyad (17) and Bouna Traore (15) in 2005, for which the police officers involved were acquitted.
Consequently, French President Emmanuel Macron and his government have attempted to address these issues by emphasizing law and order, partly as a response to the influence of far-right parties and their sympathizers within the police force, which has caused concern within the Macron administration. However, both right-wing and left-wing governments have struggled to effectively tackle these deep-rooted problems, reflecting a broader malaise within French society.
It is important to note that the notion that all children of North African parents and grandparents are not well integrated or included is incorrect. Many of these children do not even speak their parents' native language and are intellectually assimilated with French republican values. However, one complex question that arises in the context of social justice and marginalization is the visible religiosity among a large majority of Muslim girls and women.
The anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment in France can be traced back to former President Jacques Chirac's administration when Nicolas Sarkozy, a strong tactician, was appointed as France's "Cop-in-Chief" to marginalize Jean-Marie Le Pen in April 2002, clean up the neighborhoods (les banlieues), and tackle illegal immigration.
These tragic events have raised questions about Macron's leadership and his ability to handle this social crisis. He finds himself caught between the legitimate concerns of the youth in the banlieues and the racist discourse propagated by far-right parties, media outlets and the elite, which often scapegoat Muslims and others. According to news reports, 70% of French people have called on President Macron to deploy the army to quell the unrest in these suburbs. Politicians from the LR party president to Zemmour have called for a state of emergency, and even the far-right-leaning police union alliance has used the term "urban guerrilla war" to describe the situation.
In summary, France is currently facing a serious political crisis following the anti-retirement and pension law protests earlier this year and the subsequent revolt of the youth in the banlieues. President Macron finds himself in a precarious position, with a relative majority in the National Assembly (the lower chamber in French Parliament) and facing significant anti-Macron sentiment from his fellow citizens, the left coalition of NUPES, and the far-right led by Ms. Le Pen. These challenges have been mounting since the "Benalla affair" scandal and the violent Yellow Vest protests in 2018-2019. The economic consequences of these events, coupled with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine, have further added to the complexities faced by the French economy.
As a result, the "youth of the banlieues revolt" is already badly affecting the image of France abroad in light of next year's Paris Olympic Games (Paris 2024). These events have posed the question of the safety of millions of tourists during the Games in the Parisian suburbs that have been burning for five nights and causing great damage to France's economy. President Macron blames social media, and the hard-working parents of those youth who are challenging him and his legacy, while the generational revolts of the banlieues are about social justice and recognition.
