By Elijah J. MAGNIER
Violence has erupted in France following the killing of Nael Marzouk, a 17-year-old French-Algerian-Moroccan, by a police officer. The incident occurred when Marzouk, who did not have a driving licence, drove off after an argument with the police and ignored their order to get out of the car. The initial statement from the two police officers falsely claimed that their lives were in danger, but video evidence later emerged, which revealed the truth. It showed one of the officers firing shots without justification, leading to his arrest on charges of premeditated murder, lying and using excessive force. The revelation of this misconduct discredited the police’s original justification for the killing.
Nevertheless, riots broke out in several cities, mainly in the suburbs, where shops, schools and municipal buildings were deliberately set alight, and 2,500 cars burned. Several shops were also looted in various cities across France. In response, French President Emmanuel Macron deployed 45,000 of the country’s 240,000 police officers to restore order, resulting in more than 1,000 arrests. But the question remains: What are the underlying factors behind these events, and why has the chaos spread to several cities? What is fuelling the anger on the French streets?
Europe sees its common values as a society characterised by integration, tolerance, justice, solidarity, fraternity and non-discrimination, where equality before the law and respect for human dignity are paramount. The Charter of the European Union guarantees individual rights, including freedom of thought, religion, assembly, expression and information, as well as respect for private life and personal liberties.
However, these ideal principles that define the European identity have become mere words on paper, applied selectively and according to circumstances. They remain aspirations to which European society aspires. It is impossible to build a society in which leaders do not respect local and international laws or the principles they profess.
Events in France are closely linked to the inequality of the “French Republic”, which is reflected in social and economic disparities. Working-class areas, commonly referred to as the suburbs, have come under severe criticism. The media portrays these areas as lawless, plagued by insecurity and brutality since the 1980s and 1990s. As a result, the security discourse has often targeted these neighbourhoods, starting with the riots in Lyon in the summer of 1981. Since then, the suburbs have been perceived as a “growing social problem”. Various factors have contributed to this perception, including the 1989 controversy over the Islamic headscarf, the emergence of al-Qaeda, the Charlie Hebdo attacks that insulted the Islamic religion and its prophet, and the 2005, 2006 and 2007 riots that embodied “anti-republican” sentiment. This notion of the districts always being more “inaccessible to the police”, in the words of Prime Minister Francois Fillon.
Le Pen’s right-wing party leader, Sébastien Chenu, said: ‘If Algeria is worried about its nationals in France, it can take them back’. The far-right narrative reinforces the portrayal of these suburbs as problematic by emphasising the insecurity caused by ‘mass migration’ from the big cities. The right-wing party portrays the suburbs as “at war with state power” and an outlawed “epicentre of terror”. Similarly, the police unions affiliated with the Ministry of the Interior advocate a “state of war” and claim that all means should be used to impose security.
As a result, local authorities have increased police presence in these areas. Since 2017, security officers have been authorised to use lethal force if they feel their lives are in danger while carrying out their duties.
French researchers have observed that penalties and prison sentences are disproportionately harsh for residents of the suburbs, especially those of African and Arab origin who hold French citizenship. This has led to prison overcrowding.
Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne ordered the deployment of hundreds of armoured vehicles during the fourth night of popular action to demonstrate a strong state response. The move portrayed the French state as a police state rather than a democracy, echoing the handling of the yellow vest protests in previous years. President Emmanuel Macron responded to the unrest by blaming social media platforms for inciting the riots and calling for an increased police presence and confrontation with protesters.
Rather than democratically addressing the problems within French society, as Europe claims to prioritise, the French Republic’s actions show a determination to demonstrate its control of the streets and prioritise security over finding common ground. This conflation of interests between an angry section of the population and the ruling state apparatus only exacerbates the situation.
President Macron himself admitted that the people did not elect him because he was the best choice for them. The French electorate rejected the extreme right represented by Marine Le Pen. It is, therefore, not surprising that there is a significant gap between the aspirations of the French people and their leader. This gap has been evident in Macron’s decision-making, often bypassing democratic processes. The proposed retirement law, for example, was withdrawn from parliament for fear of rejection by the majority and a significant proportion of the French population.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the state pays less attention to internal issues such as the problems of the Paris suburbs and the other dozen or so areas such as Lyon, Marseille, Nantes and Lille that have experienced riots. Instead, the state tends to focus on international issues, such as its involvement in the war in Ukraine between the United States and Russia, an involvement in which neither France nor Europe is directly involved and which has fuelled inflation in the country, devalued the euro and increased electricity, gas and food prices. This diversionary tactic ignores the economic cohesion that could be achieved with Russia, similar to the unification of the European continent during the Second World War when more than 24 million Russian citizens sacrificed their lives to counter the threat posed by Germany to European countries, particularly France.
As a result, France has yet to find a comprehensive solution to the ongoing problems in the Paris suburbs and other affected areas. Instead of striving for justice, equality and fraternity, which is the motto of the French Republic, the state’s actions and policies reflect a failure to uphold and respect the ink-on-paper European principles that are supposed to guide and unite the continent. The focus on the suburbs should not be seen as an isolated local problem but rather as a symptom of the absence of these principles on a broader European scale.
