The shooting death of a young African American man by police ignited major riots and reignited disputes and conflicts between the police and the impoverished suburban population of France.
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| A scene from the clashes between protesters and police on the streets of Lyon, France, during the riots on June 30. (Source: AFP) |
In France, the fatal shooting of an Algerian and Moroccan teenager by a police officer triggered devastating riots shortly afterward, exposing underlying tensions between security forces and the Black and Arab communities living in the country's poorest urban areas.
This also fueled accusations of violence and racism by the French police, a force widely considered to be somewhat tougher than their European counterparts.
The dual problem of violence and racism.
The incident is reminiscent of the shocking death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a US police officer knelt on his neck in front of many onlookers in May 2020. This event also sparked a strong wave of anti-racism protests in the US.
Similarly, this past week in France, violence erupted and quickly spread from Nanterre to other suburbs across the country, then to the heart of the capital, Paris. The images of the City of Lights in recent days have been of barricades, burned cars and public buildings, and looted shops...
This could be considered the most serious riots France has witnessed since 2005, when young people, mostly from minority groups, wreaked havoc on the country's most impoverished neighborhoods for three weeks after two teenagers died in an accident while being chased by police.
Sebastian Roché, a police studies expert at Sciences-Po University, argues that French police are facing "a dual problem of violence and racism," both of which have been ignored by current and past governments .
Meanwhile, Éric Marliere, a sociologist at the University of Lille, assessed that images of similar incidents had appeared in the past, but none were as serious as this one.
Éric Marliere said: “We are witnessing a very violent scene, similar to the case of George Floyd, and this has contributed to the increase in protest movements.”
This is likely another major concern for President Emmanuel Macron, who is seeking to restore his image both domestically and internationally after months of strikes across France over pension reforms.
The Élysée Palace occupant had to postpone his visit to Germany to stay and deal with the crisis. Last week, the leader was also forced to quickly leave the European Union (EU) summit in Brussels (Belgium) to return to Paris.
Prejudices about the police
This is not the first time French police have used heavy-handed tactics in handling cases, especially those involving ethnic minorities. In the early 1960s, officers under the command of Paris police chief Maurice Papon killed dozens, if not hundreds, of Algerians participating in an independence protest.
In the following decades, the immigrant population, poverty, and crime on the outskirts of major French cities presented a significant challenge for the police.
However, according to expert Sebastian Roché, tensions between residents and security forces in poor suburbs have worsened over the past 15 years, particularly since the 2005 riots when police were caught off guard and lost control of the situation.
In the following years, under various governments, many new measures were implemented to control suburban areas, primarily by building up tougher forces. For example, special anti-crime squads were established to carry out arrests and suppress the most volatile elements. Officers were also equipped with LBDs, rubber bullet riot guns.
Statistics show that French police are more likely to use firearms to resolve problems than their European counterparts. Over the past decade, an average of 44 people have been killed by police in France each year – a figure far lower than the hundreds in the US, but significantly higher than in Germany or the UK.
Part of the reason may be related to the low standards and short training time of the French police force, in the context of Macron's rapid efforts to strengthen the police force after he took office in 2017.
In recent years, the recruitment rate for French police has increased from 1 in 50 applicants to 1 in 5 applicants each year. New recruits now have only 8 months of training, significantly less than the 3 years required in Germany.
However, the issue is not just about professional quality; it also concerns the regulations that police officers must adhere to.
Following the Nanterre shooting, many criticized a law passed in 2017 that allowed police to use their weapons even when their own lives or the lives of others were not in imminent danger. After this bill was passed, the number of people killed in private vehicles for failing to comply with stop orders increased fivefold, with a record 13 deaths in such situations last year.
According to Reuters statistics, the vast majority of those killed while being stopped by police since their powers to use force were expanded are people of color or of Arab descent. Studies also indicate that, as in the U.S., children of color are at a much higher risk of being subjected to police identity checks than their white counterparts and may be beaten, insulted, or subjected to violence during such encounters.
The riots have ended, but the conflict remains.
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has repeatedly stated that, while some police officers may be unethical, French police are generally not racist and that the security forces are "the best school for social integration in the Republic."
Michel Wieviorka, Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Sciences-Po University, argues that the French view of society, which chooses to ignore the importance of people's sense of belonging to ethnic, religious, or cultural groups, "makes it difficult to speak the truth."
Following the Nanterre shooting, mainstream French news outlets even struggled to directly address the question of whether the incident would have ended differently if the driver had been white.
According to Michel Wieviorka, for resentful young people in the suburbs, feelings of injustice, discrimination, and racism are very real.
The unrest seems to be extending far beyond how they are treated by the police. Residents of French suburbs have fewer than average opportunities to succeed in school and in the job market, with political parties increasingly viewing these slums as “political vacuums” they pay little attention to.
Against this backdrop, riots have erupted frequently and with increasing intensity. With approximately 5,000 vehicles burned, 1,000 buildings damaged, 250 attacks on police stations, and over 700 officers injured in just the last few days, this new wave of unrest has caused far more damage than the weeks of violence that rocked France in 2005.
This week, President Macron is expected to meet with the mayors of more than 200 towns affected by the riots. Few observers are optimistic that this crisis will lead to any real change, while the flames of conflict continue to smolder despite the government's declarations of an end to the riots.
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