EDITORIAL – French riots indicative of larger issue

Sometimes, 4,700 cars have to be set on fire or otherwise destroyed. Sometimes, dozens of… Sometimes, 4,700 cars have to be set on fire or otherwise destroyed. Sometimes, dozens of police need to be injured and hundreds of citizens arrested. Sometimes, buses full of people need to be doused with gasoline and burned, and foreign reporters need to be beaten until unconscious. Sometimes, old men who try to put out fires need to be attacked. Sometimes, they need to die.

Sometimes, things need to get a whole lot worse before they can get any better.

When two teenage boys were accidentally electrocuted as they hid from police officers in an economically depressed, largely immigrant-populatedParis suburb, things got worse.

Their deaths sparked a rash of riots and vandalism that has been going on for almost two weeks all over France. The violence has even spread out of the country; cars were set on fire in Belgium and Germany.

Businesses, schools and historic buildings are being destroyed. People of all ages, races and income levels are being hurt. The violence these two deaths have sparked is terrible, but it isn’t surprising.

Rather, it is simply an example of what happens when issues aren’t addressed.

Despite the common misperceptions that Europe is more tolerant, socially liberal or integrated, racism is alive and well across the Atlantic. The two boys who died were of Mauritanian and Tunisian origin, and are representative of a large population of Arab and North African immigrants who, even in the second generation, have not integrated into French society.

Instead, they have remained in what are essentially ghettos outside of France’s urban areas. Their problems and those in America’s inner-city areas are similar, though one could argue that France has largely ignored the dire situations in its ghettos.

That French President Jacques Chirac has even acknowledged that France has not properly integrated the French-born, Arab and African youth who are now running amok is a significant first step for a country with a history of sweeping such unpleasant realities under the rug.

Once the riots are brought under control, though, he will have to go a step further. Clearly, suppression is not an effective method of dealing with these issues. Programs need to be put in place to ensure that people born within a country identify with their homeland.

This isn’t an issue of religion – France’s most influential Islamic organization issued a condemnation of the riots – but rather one of socioeconomic standings and race. Any time and in any country, if people perceive themselves as unable to legally better their situations or as discriminated against based on skin color, problems will arise.

It is unfortunate that in France these problems had to arise in such a violent manner. If the riot is properly extinguished, though, a more equitable system may rise from its ashes.