French suburb marks riot deaths anniversary

Mourners marched silently through the neglected Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois today to mark the deaths a year ago of two teenagers that ignited three weeks of riots in largely immigrant housing projects across France.

The outburst of anger at the accidental deaths of the youths, electrocuted in a power substation while hiding from police, grew into a broader challenge against the French state and its forces of order that has continued to simmer in the year since.

Attackers forced passengers off four buses before torching them in different Paris suburbs in recent days, and police have been ambushed in several organised attacks in recent weeks, raising fears of a new wave of violence around the anniversary.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday pledged to assign police to protect buses serving parts of Paris’ suburbs, and more than 500 extra riot police have been assigned to suburban Paris to beef up security there this week.

Last year’s events jolted the nation into recognising its failure to offer minorities – especially those of Arab and black African origin, and France’s 5-million-strong Muslim population – a fair shake.

Instead of France’s vaunted “egalite”, or equality, immigrants and their French-born children suffer police harassment, struggle to find work, and live in cinderblock public housing drenched in crime and poverty.

The government passed an equal opportunities law this spring and has poured in funds to “sensitive” areas, but disenchantment still reigns.

Today, several hundred residents of Clichy-sous-Bois and other suburbs held a silent march in honour of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traore, teens of African descent who took refuge in a power substation from what they thought was a police chase on Oct. 27, 2005. In the minds of young people here, it was fear of police that led to their deaths.

No police were visible at Friday’s march.

Carrying a banner reading “Dead For Nothing”, families of the teens led the ethnically diverse crowd away from city hall toward the power station. A memorial will be erected at the site, which for the past year has been adorned only with the graffiti and rubble that are the signature of such neighbourhoods.

Clichy-sous-Bois has no police station, so officers patrolling here come from outside and have no connection to residents. There is no public transport and few have private cars, leaving most people virtually trapped. Unemployment among its 28,000 residents is well above the 95 national average at 23.5%, and rises to 32% for those between the ages of 15 and 24, according to the newspaper La Croix.

France’s inability to better integrate minorities and the recent suburban violence are becoming political priorities in the campaign for next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections.

Candidates for the opposition Socialist Party’s presidential nomination criticised the government’s handling of the suburbs during a debate last night ahead of next month’s party primary.

Former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius said the recent flare-up of violence showed the government’s policies are a “total failure”.

“One year ago, Bouna and Zyed were burned to a cinder,” he said. “Nothing has changed” since then, he said.

Sarkozy, the interior minister and leading contender on the right, is blamed by many for fuelling the riots by hard-line statements about the youth of the projects.

“I have decided to mobilise all the mobile forces we dispose of in order to serve those who take public transport,” Sarkozy said following a meeting Thursday evening with public transportation officials.

The 500 additional police officers pulled in to suburban Paris this week will be in five units meant to reinforce the 13 units already assigned to the area.

“It’s better to be over-prepared than to come up short,” said Marc Gautron, national secretary of the UNSA police union. “We want to be able to make the maximum number of arrests if a bus or a person are attacked.”

Another police union, Alliance, called for officers to stage protests in front of city halls across France on November 13.

“Police cannot be the only ones to confront the difficulties of the suburbs,” said Alliance Secretary General Jean-Claude Delange.