Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New York

Chapter 2. Policing Racial Boundaries and Riots in Paris (1920–2002)

Chapter 2 Policing Racial Boundaries and Riots in Paris (1920–2002) Until 2005 most French scholars insisted that racism was a distinctly American phenomenon. French workers, Michelle Lamont argued, ‘‘define the poor and black as ‘part of us,’ using the language of class solidarity.’’1 Although they reject North Africans, it is because they believe that Muslims ‘‘violate the principles of republicanism and are culturally incompatible with the French.’’2 Patrick Weil argued that with the notable exception of Vichy, France had a long republican tradition of recognizing only individuals and their relationships to the state, although admittedly this tradition did not extend to France’s colonial empire abroad.3 Pierre Bourdieu and Loı̈c Wacquant went so far as to accuse Americans of ‘‘cultural imperialism ’’ for using distinctly American racial categories to examine issues of class and immigration in French banlieues.4 Even now most French scholars and nearly the entire political establishment fail to acknowledge racial inequality or racial discrimination on the part of the state or any part of its security apparatus.5 There are several flaws, however, in this line of reasoning. First, French political rhetoric commonly refers to the problem of immigrants and banlieue youths. Yet most of those termed ‘‘immigrant’’ were either born in France or are naturalized citizens.6 ‘‘Immigrant’’ and ‘‘banlieue youth’’ are code words and mark the same categorical boundaries as race or ethnicity. Young people of black, Arab, or Berber heritage are referred to as immigrants even when they are third generation or were born in overseas French territories with French citizenship. The term ‘‘immigrant’’ almost never refers to actual immigrants from Europe, the United States, Australia, or New Zealand. One-quarter of Frenchmen have at least one immigrant Racial Boundaries and Riots in Paris 89 grandparent, and yet they are considered to be fully French (de souche, or of French roots). As Gérard Noiriel notes, ‘‘[F]rom a genealogical perspective the living memory of the immigrant experience is greater today among the French than among Americans.’’7 Second, studies have consistently underestimated the degree of racial segregation in French cities, as both Didier Fassin and David Lapoutre have pointed out in their respective ethnographies of Quatre-Mille in La Courneuve (one of the poorest banlieues surrounding Paris) and the French police. Since France does not collect data on race or ethnicity, it is impossible to make comparative claims, especially with American and British cities (where data on race and ethnicity are collected by the census bureau and other public agencies). Fassin notes, Data on citizenship, usually the only indicator recorded in the analysis , substantially understate the reality of the presence of these groups because individuals who have acquired French citizenship are not counted. . . . Although there remain households of European origin, the majority of residents—whether they hold French nationality or not—are of African origin, either black or Arab, and they themselves complain that their communities are increasingly concentrated in these areas. Moreover, the segregation of these groups is markedly higher than it would be if this was simply the consequence of their socioeconomic level, indicating it is due not only to this latter factor, as is often said, but also to racial discrimination in housing, which adds to the discrimination in employment and more broadly, in access to most resources.8 Wacquant’s study of Quatre-Mille, for instance, relied on a 1982 survey of citizenship to show that French banlieues, in contrast to America ghettos, were ethnically diverse.9 In contrast, Lapoutre, who taught for ten years at a school in Quatre-Mille, cites a 1992 survey that queried 945 youths. Only 10 percent of those surveyed identified themselves as French de souche. Fifty-one percent self-identified as Arab; 30 percent as black from Africa, the Antilles, or Comoro; 5 percent as Hindu; 3 percent as Yugoslavian, Portuguese, or Italian, and the rest as Asian.10 When Lapoutre asked young people about the overall racial and ethnic makeup of the neighborhood, they could think of only three or four families who were not ethnic or racial minorities. Moreover the youths believed that the purpose of French 90 Chapter 2 republican denial of race was to hide French guilt over colonialism and the postcolonial treatment of its former colonial subjects. Third, French colonial subjects were French nationals, not immigrants. Algeria, in particular, as Todd Shepard observes, was a district in France...