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Michaela Muscat in Paris
Images of Paris under siege were propagated all over the world after news broke out of disillusioned immigrant youths burning cars and wreaking havoc in the French capital’s outer arrondissements.
But it was business as usual in the centre of Paris and the middle-class neighbourhoods. The queue at the Tour Eiffel to view the city of lights from the iron tower was not any shorter and only a couple of soldiers and police were visible around this famous landmark – just shortly after internet bloggers had circulated the false rumour that an attempt to bring down this tower was going to take place at night.
The “Les Miserables” images conjured in my head after hours watching international news reportage on television disappeared as quickly as they had formed. Dominique, an export manager for a French beauty company was annoyed at the people protesting. Not very sympathetic to their cause, she was adamant it was “being played up by the American media as a payback for the European outrage at the New Orleans fiasco.”
Indeed the French are still partying until the early hours of the morning, smoking furiously in their cafés and enjoying la belle vie. No feelings of fear can be felt in any part of the city and the protests are discussed passionately but with a sense of detachment.
The demonstrations were sparked off when two youths residing in one of the poorest suburbs of Paris were accidentally electrocuted after they reportedly ran off to escape the sometimes brutal treatment of French police in regards to youths of Arabic origins.
“In London they have ghettoes according to ethnicity, but in France we have ghettoes according to social class,” says Laurent, a teacher at one of the banlieu high schools. He says the gentrification of working class neighbourhoods like Notting Hill and Camden in London forces the locals to keep on moving further out.
Laurent is convinced these youths are victims of their own stupidity as well as the shortcomings of their unprivileged background: “they are like animals because they only react to their instincts and it is made worse with the violence promoted – all they see is violence. These youths observe the farmers storming buildings and blocking roads and they get their way. Their limitations can be observed through their insistence to destroy their schools, their shops and their cars. They are already suffering a setback because of their poverty and they are making it worse.”
His boyfriend Michel asks me whether I have observed the Parisians behaving in an awkward manner towards dark-skinned people. Unlike London in the aftermath of the 7 June bombings, here there is no talk of the clash of civilizations. There is no talk of “these people loathing our way of life”. They are accepted as a facet of French society, albeit one sprouting a good number of problems. Unemployment in these areas is rife and discrimination by employers towards people with an Arabic surname is commonplace.
There are no people shifting uneasily in their seats in the busses or in the tubes. “We know it is not an attack on the French way of life but a vociferous manner of showing their discontent,” Michel says. The French seem to take it rather matter-of-factly that people have the right to protest, but they are divided over the issue at stake.
Max is a student at Nanterres University, the Maoist hotbed which spurred the 1968 student protests. A minority himself, he is a proud member of the youth section of the European Peoples Party in a staunchly left-wing university he disdainfully describes as “a centre for socialist thugs.”
Max openly backs Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and presidential hopeful known by both his foes and supporters as ‘Sarko’. He is unapologetic for Sarkozy calling the protesters “scum” and threatening them to get them “Karcherised” – a reference to a common brand of high-pressure industrial cleaner.
The law student plainly says: “Sarko is the man who talks straight and takes immediate action.” Irrespective of his lack of sympathy for these youths, Max is clearly annoyed at what he perceived to be an exaggeration of the situation by the international media.
mmuscat@mediatoday.com.mt
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