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R 271541Z OCT 06
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2628
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNISL/ISLAMIC COLLECTIVE
RUEHMRE/AMCONSUL MARSEILLE 1383
RUEHSR/AMCONSUL STRASBOURG 0215
RUCPDOC/DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE WASHDC
RUEHC/DEPARTMENT OF LABOR WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 PARIS 007084 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED -- HANDLE ACCORDINGLY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PHUM SOCI ELAB FR PGOV
SUBJECT: THE FUSE AND THE POWDER KEG: FRANCE ONE YEAR AFTER 
ITS SUBURBS BURNED 
 
REF: 2005 PARIS 7835 
 
PARIS 00007084  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  One year after violent unrest lit up 
France's underclass suburbs for three weeks, the country's 
poor suburban neighborhoods remain troubled.  Religious 
identity in these largely Muslim areas was not a significant 
causal factor then, nor has it become one now.  Instead, 
failures in education, housing and jobs -- and widespread 
discrimination in all three -- are seen as the critical 
underlying factors.  A year after these events, France is 
assessing the state of its immigrant underclass, and the 
government's efforts to promote integration and enhance 
security over the past year.  The picture is decidedly mixed. 
 Violent restiveness among young men persists despite 
highly-touted government policies designed to better their 
situation.  The government claims it has in place both 
long-term and short-term policies that are improving the 
situation, but an unfortunate incident could again spark a 
resurgence of violent unrest among underclass youths.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
One Year Ago 
------------ 
¶2.  (SBU) On October 27, 2005, the accidental deaths by 
electrocution of two youths hiding from police in a power 
transformer installation sparked widespread urban unrest 
across France that lasted weeks.  Last year's unrest (reftel) 
caused considerable property damage, put France -- in images 
of burning cars and riot police clashing with hooded youths 
-- on television screens around the world, and shook the 
confidence of the French in the "French integration model" 
and their society's capacity to integrate its recent waves of 
immigrants.  The unrest, which began in the suburbs of Paris, 
soon spread to disadvantaged neighborhoods in cities and 
towns across the country.  The extent of the unrest was 
sobering.  During the weeks of turmoil some 300 towns were 
affected, more than 6,000 cars were burned, and some 1,800 
individuals were taken in for questioning.  The relentless 
deployment of police and gendarmes led some police union 
leaders to caution about overstretch of individuals and 
units.  During the unrest, the government invoked emergency 
measures, including curfews, last used in the 1960s during 
the war in Algeria.  But there was only one death, and it was 
not attributed to any police action. 
 
Poor Suburbs Remain Troubled 
---------------------------- 
¶3.  (SBU) At the center of this unrest last year were groups 
of youths, some barely in their teens.  These youths are 
almost all of Arab or African (and mostly Muslim) 
backgrounds.  By and large, last year and now, religion is 
not particularly important in their lives.  These youths have 
been characterized as "the third generation;" their immigrant 
grandparents often having come to France from rural 
backgrounds with little education to fill the most menial 
jobs.  The majority of these youths are French citizens, who 
have only known the stressful impoverishment and mean streets 
of France's suburban neighborhoods.  There is considerable 
disagreement as to the exact composition and size of the 
"socially excluded" population of which these youths are a 
part.  The French government termed 75 neighborhoods 
"sensitive urban zones."  In particular the young in this 
population feel disconnected from the national culture, 
brought from their North- and Sub-Saharan African countries 
of origin, that may have structured life for parents and 
grandparents.  These youths also feel little connection to 
French culture (indeed, they feel stonily rejected by French 
society).  As the mayor of one of these beleaguered "urban 
zones" (Clichy-sur-Bois) put it to Poloff in a recent 
conversation, "these kids start seeing themselves as citizens 
of nothing."  In addition to the fear and anger that 
dominates their lives, most also suffer from low self-esteem 
and lack of confidence -- which compounds the difficulty of 
getting a job.  The mayors of these towns are unanimous in 
their conviction that if parents and kids had jobs, most of 
their towns' social problems would go away.  But that has not 
yet happened.  According to the Ministry of Employment Social 
Cohesion and Housing's Task Force on Sensitive Urban Zones 
the unemployment rate in these areas is over 21 percent 
overall (and rising), and, for young men under 25, it jumps 
to 36 percent (2005 figures). 
 
Four Buses Burned in Past Week 
 
PARIS 00007084  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
------------------------------ 
¶4.  (SBU) In the week preceding the "anniversary" of the 
beginning of last year's unrest, four buses have been burned 
in troubled suburban neighborhoods.  In these attacks -- 
according to police, clearly planned rather than random 
violence -- large groups of hooded youths waited in ambush 
near a stop for a bus to pull up, then streamed aboard, 
forced the passengers and driver off the bus, and then 
torched the vehicle.  So far, there have been no injuries in 
these attacks.  One of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's 
closest advisors flatly told Poloff on October 26 that "these 
attacks are countermoves against us by the criminal elements 
in the suburbs because we are succeeding against them."  The 
similarity of the "tactics" used in the four incidents, the 
organization exhibited by the attackers, and the fact that 
some of the attackers may have been armed with guns -- still 
relatively hard to obtain in France -- lends credence to the 
view that these recent incidents may well be an effort by the 
criminal organizations that also thrive in France's poor 
suburbs to "hit back" against the interior ministry's 
aggressive anti-crime efforts in these areas. 
 
"The Fuse and the Powder Keg" 
----------------------------- 
¶5.  (SBU) In the aftermath of last year's unrest, Prime 
Minister Dominique de Villepin promised to make taking action 
against the problems underlying the violence his government's 
top priority.  Villepin laid out an ambitious agenda to 
increase equal opportunity, adapt education, generate jobs 
and provide housing, and there has been some incremental 
progress.  But the underlying situation remains largely 
unchanged, leading to a climate in which a constantly 
simmering, low level of violence -- setting fire to garbage 
bins, taunting police and tossing rocks and bottles at 
passing police cars, etc. risks boiling over.  The mayors of 
many of these towns, recently interviewed for press reports 
on the situation, nearly all expressed their apprehension 
that an unforeseen incident could spark a reaction of rage, 
and set off another wave of widespread unrest.  In the words 
of Jean-Christophe Lagarde, mayor of Drancy (also in the 
suburbs of Paris), "It's not enough to stamp out the fuse 
that leads to the powder keg; we've also got to empty the 
powder keg." 
 
Long-term Programs to "Empty the Powder Keg" 
-------------------------------------------- 
¶6.  (SBU) Over the last twelve months the Villepin government 
has reinforced many existing social programs and undertaken a 
number of new initiatives.  Social Solidarity Minister 
Jean-Louis Borloo, who oversees a massive range of long-term 
housing and employment services programs, has claimed, in 
effect, that the powder keg, albeit slowly, is being emptied 
as well as can reasonably be expected.  In this view, 
bettering social conditions in France's poor suburbs is 
clearly a long-term undertaking, eventual success of which is 
highly dependent on political leadership and effective social 
and economic policy.  A convincing vision of an equal 
opportunity France must be articulated, along with 
implementation of polices that channel the effects of 
economic growth, expansion of labor markets, investment in 
human capital, etc., to those most in need of launching their 
boats on the rising tide.  Borloo is the government's leading 
spokesperson for what he calls "realism" about what it will 
take to engineer lasting social progress.  Critics of the 
government, particularly the opposition Socialist Party (PS) 
mayors of these often formerly working class suburbs, argue 
the government is moving too slowly and that its programs are 
overly geared to the long term. 
 
Visible Fixes and Short-term Hopes 
---------------------------------- 
¶7.  (SBU) Citing France's egalitarian "republicanism," PM 
Villepin and President Chirac have rejected outright any 
steps towards affirmative action (called "positive 
discrimination" in France).  However, Villepin spearheaded 
draft legislation to create an agency for equal opportunity, 
and initiated programs to guarantee access to top 
universities for minority students.  Villepin also pushed 
programs to permit apprenticeships starting at age 14 for 
students in difficulty (an exception to France's current 
child labor standards and to its current school attendance 
standards), and institute voluntary civic service.  The new 
Equal Opportunity Agency, which is only now getting off the 
 
PARIS 00007084  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
ground, has just been accorded a 2007 budget of more than 500 
million Euros (627 million Dollars).  The agency aims to help 
people in disadvantaged neighborhoods and immigrant 
populations to fight discrimination and make up their 
educational shortfalls.  The agency will also encourage 
voluntary community service. 
 
While Reforming Immigration and Deterring Crime 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
¶8.  (SBU) To address the concerns of the silent majority 
frightened by the unrest, the government also tightened some 
immigration controls and showed itself tough on crime.  In 
November 2005, primarily to discourage illegal migration 
through fraudulent marriage and parentage claims, it made 
some minor changes to immigration regulation.  Interior 
Minister (and presidential hopeful) Nicholas Sarkozy has gone 
even further, proposing to his EU counterparts the creation 
of an EU-wide immigration policy that would prohibit mass 
amnesties and humanitarian parole except on a case-by-case 
basis.  He has also urged tougher treatment of youthful 
offenders, advocating treating repeat offenders ages 16 to 18 
as adults rather than minors, and recommending mandatory 
minimum sentences for those who attack police officers.  This 
latest proposal came after several recent incidents in which 
large numbers of urban youth -- 50 or more -- attacked 
officers trying to make arrests or patrol in their 
neighborhoods.  The rising numbers of police officers injured 
in the line of duty, an increase in part due to 
confrontations in troubled suburbs, is itself a matter of 
concern to the public, police authorities, and police unions. 
 On October 17, at ceremony honoring officers injured in the 
line of duty, Interior Minister Sarkozy paid tribute to the 
"2,890 police officer injured in the line of duty since 
January 1, 2006." 
 
 
Crime and Prejudice, and Social Unrest 
-------------------------------------- 
¶9.  (SBU) Some police representatives, and many Sarkozy 
supporters, attribute much of the persisting violence not to 
rampaging youths but to crime bosses in the neighborhoods, 
who have a strong interest in keeping drug markets and other 
activities free of police interference.  But the interaction 
of the police with residents of these communities, 
particularly their young men, may also be a negative 
contributing factor.  Anecdotal evidence suggests strongly 
that police officers sometimes single out young Arabs or 
Africans walking on the street and ask them for 
identification papers.  Moreover, the residents of 
disadvantaged neighborhoods resent police checkpoints and 
constant surveillance of their neighborhoods by undercover 
police officers in unmarked cars.  (The youths who died by 
electrocution a year ago, according to some press reports, 
initially ran away from a police checkpoint.)  The cycle of 
mistrust and resentment thus engendered -- and captured so 
vividly already years ago in a French film called "Hatred" -- 
risks making a bad situation worse and could spark the very 
outbreaks of violence it aims to preempt. 
 
Sarkozy, Suburban Unrest, and the Presidential Campaign 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
¶10.  (SBU) What to do about the security dimension of the 
problem -- both the organized crime and the simmering social 
unrest -- in these neighborhoods puts Interior Minister 
Nicolas Sarkozy at center stage.  Sarkozy, who is also a 
leading candidate for election as France's president in next 
Spring's election, has founded his credibility as a national 
leader on his commitment to law-and-order.  Sarkozy has 
continued to emphasize police presence and zero-tolerance 
towards law-breakers as essential if "the Republic is to 
protect all its citizens on all its territory."  Sarkozy's 
detractors argue that this "repressive" strategy (its 
implementation on the ground often entrusted to inexperienced 
policemen) has served to exacerbate tensions, creating a 
dynamic of challenge and response between youths and police 
that has served to make a bad situation worse.  True to form, 
Sarkozy has stuck to his guns, aggressively defending his 
policies and the work being done by his policemen and women. 
In a series of recent, (and, as usual, also highly publicized 
appearances), Sarkozy has projected himself as the political 
leader most credibly engaged on the front lines of the 
cross-cutting issues of immigration reform, domestic 
tranquility, and safe streets.  These issues, all largely 
 
PARIS 00007084  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
driven by the fears generated by the violence perpetrated by 
the minority of angry, alienated youngsters in suburban 
neighborhoods, are likely to be significant factors in the 
upcoming presidential campaign. 
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm 
HOFMANN