VZCZCXYZ0000
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHFR #7715/01 3421245
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 081245Z DEC 06
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3647

UNCLAS PARIS 007715 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: FR PGOV PHUM
SUBJECT: INTEGRATION AND "REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP" IN THE 
FRENCH SUBURBS 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  Francois Garay, the avowedly leftist mayor 
of Les Mureaux, a town of 32,000 inhabitants 25 miles 
northeast of Paris where October civil unrest left seven 
police officers injured and two automobiles destroyed, 
explicitly rejected economic, racial, and religious 
explanations as the central causes of France,s simmering 
social tension.  He highlighted instead the nation,s failure 
to inculcate in its youth a clear and abiding sense of 
"secular Republic" citizenship.  In an effort to replace this 
lost structure, the mayor has proposed a range of activities 
and "initiating moments" he believes could serve as a model 
for providing future French citizens with the sense of shared 
experience and civic education that is currently lacking. 
END SUMMARY. 
 
Decrying a Lack of Republican "Citizenship Scaffolding" 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
¶2. (SBU)  On November 30, Poloff and LES called on Francois 
Garay, Mayor of Les Mureaux, a town of 32,000 inhabitants 25 
miles northeast of Paris where October civil unrest left 
seven police officers injured and two automobiles destroyed. 
Mayor Garay spent the first few minutes of our meeting laying 
out some of the causes for social tensions in Les Mureaux.  A 
nearby automobile factory, opened 35 years ago, had attracted 
a wave of recent immigrants, many of whom arrived with large 
extended families, in search of unskilled jobs.  The mayor 
emphasized that several of these early arrivals were 
polygamists, a factor that intensified the subsequent 
population explosion of second- and third-generation, 
unskilled, poorly integrated town inhabitants. 
 
¶3. (SBU)  Garay asserted that this demographic trend 
coincided with the failure of current French leaders to 
provide critical "citizenship scaffolding" to a new 
generation of culturally diverse French citizens.  In his own 
statement of the central problem, "The current generation of 
those in authority in France, myself  included, have 
inadvertently failed to provide crucial 'initiating moments' 
that have in the past served to instill Republican 
citizenship values...Our secular Republic must be universal 
and must provide a common structure to its citizens, lives, 
regardless of national origin, religion, social milieu, or 
family status." 
 
¶4. (SBU)  Garay followed up his general diagnosis of France's 
malady with a list of specific remedies.  In a program that 
he has shopped around to the senior members of parties on 
both the political right and left, Garay recommends a series 
of sequential activities that would impart vocational skills, 
Republican values, and a common basis of experience to 
reinforce a shared sense of belonging in French youth. 
 
¶5. (U)  Prominent among Garay's programmatic suggestions are: 
 
--  A program of hands-on civic education for younger 
students including a Children,s Municipal Council, public 
works projects, and structured field trips in cooperation 
with the public and private sector. 
 
--  A job fair and apprenticeship program allowing high 
school-aged students to sample vocational options including a 
required summer of employment. 
 
--  A "citizen passport" issued to all 18-year-olds involving 
a summer of mandatory public service in another area of the 
country. 
 
¶6. (SBU)  Garay expressed anger and frustration over the 
police raids in Les Mureaux subsequent to October,s violence 
and claimed to have been excluded from security forces, 
planning.  "The police chief never alerted me (about the 
raids)...only the town commissioner told me about them eight 
hours in advance because we are on good personal terms." 
When asked who organized the raids, Garay responded, "I 
don,t know if it was Sarkozy, and I really don,t give a 
damn.  But this (raid) is about media hype.  It is not worthy 
of a secular Republic."  Commenting on last year,s more 
widespread civil unrest and its media coverage, Garay 
expounded on his frustration that nationally televised images 
of rioters only compounded the problem. "We,re walking along 
the razor,s edge.  You work (on addressing the real causes 
of this problem) and, in three minutes of footage on the 
eight o,clock news, they are going to destroy all my 
efforts." 
 
¶7. (SBU)  COMMENT: Garay's approach is typical for a mayor of 
the left (Socialist or Communist) who must reconcile idealism 
and dogma with difficult on-the-ground realities.  The result 
is often policies and initiatives that stress inclusion 
rather than retribution.  Whether this is sufficient -- in a 
high unemployment, low growth environment, and in the face of 
persistent discriminatory practices -- is open to question. 
 
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm 
STAPLETON