We're not going to stop until Sarkozy resigns"

[Moses]

'We're not germs or louts. Sarkozy should've said sorry'

Alex Duval Smith in Aulnay-sous-Bois
Sunday November 6, 2005
The Observer

Night falls and the violence can begin. The blue light of a passing police van flashes across the sweat on 17-year-old HB's forehead. 'They're provoking us by driving around like that. We are not going to stop until Sarkozy resigns,' he says.

For five nights in a row, HB and his mates have been battling with riot police on the notorious Mille-Mille housing estate, buried deep in the high-rise suburbs that line the motorway to Charles de Gaulle airport. They have burnt cars, businesses and a school but, really, they want the head of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

'He should go and f-ck himself,' says HB, who was born in France of Algerian parents. 'We are not germs. He said he wants to clean us up. He called us louts. He provoked us on television. He should have said sorry for showing us disrespect, but now it is too late.'

HB's views are clear. 'The only way to get the police here is to set fire to something. The fire brigade does not come here without the police, and the police are Sarkozy's men so they are the ones we want to see.'

All the dustbins were burnt long ago. 'Cars make good barricades and they burn nicely, and the cameras like them. How else are we going to get our message across to Sarkozy? It is not as if people like us can just turn up at his office.'

HB, who is at college training to be a chef, claims he likes his estate and the unity he feels between people with Caribbean parents, black Africans, a few people of standard French descent and first, second and third-generation Moroccans and Algerians who have made up the majority of Aulnay-sous-Bois's population for the past 30 years.

The eldest of five, his father came to France at the age of seven and has been employed ever since by the municipality. HB feels a 'tremendous togetherness' at Mille-Mille, but he does not feel 'French'.

Jobs? 'There are a few at the airport and at the Citroën plant, but it's not even worth trying if your name is Mohamed or Abdelaoui.'

A cannabis joint is passed around and HB admits the parallel economy reigns in 'Neuf-Trois' (93, the administrative number of the Seine-Saint-Denis département of which Aulnay is part). 'The police are hypocrites. Many of them - though not the riot police who've been bussed in from the sticks in the past few days - know us. They know there are hash deals and who is doing them. They also know something that Sarkozy has not understood: just because you live on a housing estate doesn't make you a criminal.'

When asked if he considers himself integrated in France, HB claims that is not his aspiration. 'I am not sure what the word means. I am part of Mille-Mille and Seine-Saint-Denis, but I am not part of Sarkozy's France, or even the France of our local mayor whom we never see. At the same time, I realise I am French, because when I visit my parents' village in Algeria that doesn't feel like home either.'

[Moses]

Sarkozy under fire as violence spreads


THE Paris riots that entered their 10th and, in some areas, most violent night on Saturday have spread to other parts of France, as a growing number of rioters call for the resignation of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

But Mr Sarkozy, alleged to have inflamed the riots by calling the youths who began them "louts" and "scum", is refusing to moderate his tough stand, telling Le Monde yesterday that the Government's strategy of firmness was correct.

Two schools and a paper recycling plant were burned and a McDonald's outlet charged with a battering ram, as 2300 police sent to Paris' northern and eastern suburbs on Saturday night detained nearly 200 youths.

More than 900 cars were destroyed, the highest number since the riots began, according to Agence France Presse. Police said yesterday a dozen cars were also burned in central Paris, the first time rioting had reached the heart of the city.

In Evreux in Normandy a mall and a post office were set on fire and riots have been reported in Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Toulouse and other large provincial cities.

The riots are France's worst since the revolt of May 1968, but whereas the earlier riots had clear political goals, the latest unrest appears so far to have been an incoherent expression of rage against police treatment, unemployment and perceived racism and discrimination in French society.

But on Saturday rioters began telling reporters that they would not stop until Mr Sarkozy resigned. "We are not germs — he said he wants to clean us up," a young French Algerian, HB, told The Observer in a typical comment.

"He called us louts and provoked us on television. He should have said sorry for showing us disrespect but now it's too late."

Mr Sarkozy, who is likely to run for president in 2007, and whose position on the riots is judged by many to be improving his standing among French voters, said violence was "not a solution".

But he acknowledged that "once the crisis is over, everyone will have to understand there are a certain number of injustices in some neighbourhoods".

"We are trying to be firm and avoid any provocation. We have to avoid any risk of explosion."

While many of the rioters are from north Africa and from Muslim backgrounds, Islamic fundamentalism is not seen as a cause of the violence, which began on October 27 after two youths were electrocuted in a power substation after fleeing a police security check.

Instead, the riots showed a complete breakdown of trust between many inhabitants of the high-rise suburbs and mainstream Frenchsociety, French sociologist Michel Wieviorka told Liberation newspaper.

"The republic is not keeping its promise of liberty, equalityand fraternity," he said. "Cultural identities are not sufficientlyrecognised, it's a total crisis."

As Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin held emergency talkswith eight senior ministers and a top Muslim official, the virtualsilence of President Jacques Chirac over the riots was troubling parliamentarians in his own ruling party. Mr Chirac was "strangely mute" and should immediately show the nation a plan to deal with the emergency, said Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a member of the National Assembly. An adviser to Mr Chirac said the President would make a public statement when he judged the time to be right.

The head of the Paris Grand Mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, did not expressly condemn Mr Sarkozy's use of the word "racaille" (scum) but called on the Government to use "words of peace" and said that"in difficult circumstances, each word is important".

NIGHT OF MAYHEM

- 918 cars torched overnight; total cars torched sincerioting began 10 days ago: 2000.

- Nearly 200 arrests; 570 people have been arrested sincethe riots began, some of them minors found carrying petrolbombs.

- The outskirts of other cities around the country —including Toulouse, Rennes, Nantes and Lille — were hit bycopycat arson attacks.

-Fires were also started in central Paris, where a petrolbomb set alight four cars near a major square, Place de laRepublique.

- 2300 more police than normal on the streets while extrafirefighters were sent to the Paris region.

[Moses]

WHY IS FRANCE BURNING?