unless your name is Jaques Pepin
or Pierre Capretz
and you wear a beret
and have a foulard around your neck
and smoke 3 packs a day
and ride around town on an antique blue bike
with a freshly baked warm baguette under your arm
and a wheel of chevre in the other........

...please stop using the word "banlieue!"

I think there are some interesting intersections and reversals here to think about―especially when considering the emergent divide in American cities as a new possible dystrophic future… As France is both reliving and actualizing our (the united states) past in its current urban reckoning―as I was reading some of the posts above I see the parallels to pre-civil rights (detroit, chicago, LA, etc) and 1980s urban racial violence which is a great reversal for the tenets of France's perceived social fabric of equality. However, also consider the urban condition of Paris and where the violence is taking place as a possible movement and becoming of the American urban condition. As the poor are forced to the periphery because of the urban renaissance in America, I believe the current situation in Paris is a sort of foreshadowing to our own future... a future where the globalized few dwell in idealic green cities of technocratic splendor and convenience surrounded by a disenfranchised suburban wasteland of the previously urban poor... Is china and it's cities the new model for a future urban paradigm. just a few thoughts more later...

ReFeudalism?

interesting string of thoughts, JJ...

I can't imagine it actually happening that way though - in the US. It seems contrary to the "American Dream," at least in its current manifestation (suburbia)...not sure that the typical North American sub-city will trade it's garages and 1/2 acre yards for the amenities of dencity.




slowly paced eminent domain at the scale of society (in the case of US or China)?

abracadabra
I'm not from the 'banlieue', neither posh nor poor. More like a small town hick actuallly... And i'm grateful for some of the free education i received, even though i also have some strong criticisms about it, but that's a whole different debate. Anyway dont attack me on my background please. Even though you dont know me, you seem to hint at some kind of correlation between my origins and my so-called denial. I find that unfair. Carefully read my previous posts again and you should see that this is not in anyway the case, i am not denying anything.


I know these folks live in absolute squalor. But believe it or not the suburban mass housing developments built 30-40 years ago used to work just fine. Their population was originally fairly mixed, people had jobs to go to in the morning. What then happened is the better off (i.e young white french couples) moved on after a while because they could afford individual family houses and the poorer sections of the population - the immigrants- were left behind, thus creating the ghetto-like environment you (aptly) describe. Far from denying that there is no problem, all i'm trying to say is that in my humble opinion it is the lack of opportunities offered to these folks and the rampant racism in french society that is to blame, rather than the built environement per se. Let me also mention here that in the poorer french suburbs there are still a lot of people who take an active part in french society. The rioters are a minority. Granted, their actions reflect the recurrent 'malaise' so deeply rooted in some suburban areas and this needs to be quickly addressed if the situation is not to spin out of control. First and foremost, that means jobs, equal opportunities and the end of systematic discrimination against immigrants. In my opinion that is the absolute pre-requisite for things to gradually improve.

doberman there is no 'attack' towards you and i have no idea on your background and i wish you all the best.
your second paragraph is addressing the issues that can't be resolved by well wishing and those 'minorities' have had enough 'gradual' bull shit.

AP, your certainly right for now, but what about after the demise of the automobile?

I suppose juvenile idealism makes me ignore potential negative aspects associated with the impending 'demise of the automobile.' In most senses, I can't wait to see it happen, but if I look at it as you've described, it has its own set of equally troubling side-effects...

AP and JJ... I've been watching this happen in Boston and the situation here, as in Manhattan obviously, is already what JJ describes. Rent control would go a long way towards helping things, because in my opinion skyrocketing rent is really the cause of many ghettos and urban problems... (as well as other things like stagnation of creative pursuits in the city, etc... but these are topics for another time.) SF is also the same way already. I don't think it'll ever get to the point that France is at, however, simply because 50% of the French live in Ile-de-France and thus the problem of ghettoization affects many more french than it will Americans, who live in a much, much more vast and decentralized country.

Doberman, your second paragraph is right on. There needs to be changed police tactics, too, however. No more challenging papers 4 times a day. The police in the HLMs are such pricks... actually the police in general... argh.

rent control can have an adverse effect too. SF has rent control. i lived in one apt there for 5 years. rent skyrocketed around us during that time. in fact it doubled in that time. that left us trapped, in a sense, where we lived. we could not afford to move to another place in the city. the landlord, obviously not happy about the rent that he was collecting from his current tenants, let the building fall down around us. at one point they, replaced all the heating units, with crappier units mind you, and left all of the holes in the walls left behind from the old heating ducts.

from the Reuters article:

National Assembly Speaker Jean-Louis Debre -- a close Chirac ally and passionate defender of the republican model -- was shocked and almost speechless on Sunday as he surveyed riot damage in Evreux, where he is mayor.

"A hundred people have smashed everything and strewn desolation," he commented. "Well, they don't form part of our universe."

i know little to nothing about french politics and immigration policies over the past 50 years (or at least, not as much as i should).

the one thing i can say is i made the mistake of thinking st-denis cathedral was worth seeing. i lived in chicago for 2 years and roamed the city, all parts, good and bad, with little abandon. i am white, by the way.

unfortunately i am also part-quebecois and i have the schnoz to prove it. never got the willies before or since like i did that day in st-denis. oh wait, yes i did -- when i wandered out of la defense into nanterre. i couldn't help but think that the french and american models of (oh) everything were so dissimilar -- but that the results were exactly the same. welfare, no welfare, minority or not -- the rich urban playgrounds are surrounded by circles of hell populated by the poor, the denigrated, and the forgotten.

and yes, it indeed is occuring here in the US. white flight was an aberration that temporarily inverted the natural process of urban segregation, where the rich can afford to live right in the center or way far away past the periphery -- and the poor are stuck in between, without proper opportunities or transportation or housing or hope.

here in austin you see the land-rover liberals moving right downtown into what used to be freemen's shacks and workers' bungalows. the land-rover conservatives are way out in the hills. and in between you have dozens of square miles of rotting 1960s / 1970s / 1980s tract houses with 1/4" gyp and 2x3 studs that are being filled with refugees from gentrification in the US and refugees from marginalization outside the US.

and austin is a nice, gentle example of a phenomenon that's much more marked and harsher elsewhere. like in clichy-sous-bois.

wow. I like how you articulated that, ochona...guess I'm starting to see what you're saying (JJ et al) as it applies today...

I have been getting more and more pissed of with the large number of conservative commentators here in aus, who are screaming 'I told you so', as if the riots in France somehow justify their support of a system that keeps refugees (mostly Iraqi and Afghani, with a few mentally ill aus citizens thrown in) in outback or offshore 'detention centres', (somehow semantics makes the razor wire ok).

People have such short memories. As ochona pointed out, these situations of marginalised urban areas occur regardless of race, religion or the amount of time people have been in the country.

We had two similar situations (although not in scope), in the last year, both times riots started as a result of deaths during a police pursuits, one is the subject of a criminal investigation. Both riots occurred in very different but strikingly similar areas, the first was in Redfern, a suburb with a large indigenous population, and the second being Macquarie fields, a predominately white area. Both areas have unemployment and crime rates way above the national average and literacy and school completion rates bellow average.

The social situation in these areas is largely as a result of a number of nearby councils all deciding to place all their social housing in one spot, which was then declared a new suburb, hey, hey, problem solved.

You can almost hear the town planners say "wouldn’t they be more comfortable with their own kind".

Coupled with a slow and almost unnoticeable withdrawal of basic services, no libraries, sports clubs, skate parks, youth centres. The only ones that stuck around in Redfern were choc mundines boxing club and the church, whose priest was publicly ridiculed by politicians for daring to criticise government and police policy.

I've always found the Massachusetts social housing model interesting... where each city is required to have a certain percentage of its housing units be Section 8... This seems to work fairly well in that even the "nice", rich suburbs have to have some Section 8 units, and do. So it sort of spreads the mix around a bit better. (This helps in terms of schooling, too.) Boston, however, remains a problem area, as the city is in fact large enough to put a bunch of Section 8 units all together in the same area--but, the problem doesn't seem to be so bad as it used to. I'm not sure if that's because the city spends comparitively a lot on social services or what. I actually work just next to that area and it's not bad at all. Anyhow... I've been meaning to study up on the Mass. model a bit more. Anyone know more about it?

Well, as a frenchmen, the mainstream press seems to be almost unaminous in their confusion and capitulation to the riots and
rioters. And most of you seem to have bought into that view.

It would be unthinkable in japan for this kind of
thing to go on in Japan. France needs to adopt the
japanese model toward immigrants and races - not the
american model.

Just as the japanese will always be japanese the
french will always be french. Everyone must be made to
understand this

The people who want to murder and burn down the cities
can either leave or stop and we are going to have take
a long and hard look at limiting the spread of islam
in france... it is simply incompatable with our
culture and a bright future for france and europe. We
no more want islam to dominate france than we want
scientology to dominate france. Culture matters to us.


It will not do either to label people such as myself
as right wing. I am very liberal on most issues except when
those issues curtail my freedom and my capacity to be liberal .

I think that we, in the name of equality, do not
want to create hell on earth so that everyone can be
equally miserable. We want quality from our citizens
and our immigrants... not quantity.

The complicity in the mainstream press with the
rioters has kept the riots going - make no mistake.
Most in the mainstream press are so propagandized and
"politically correct" that any meaningful or
contructive discussion is impossible. We french
however are not buying it anymore.

We have tried it the liberal way, it hasn't worked. The extreme
liberality and generosity of the western countries has
been rewarded with treachery and the politics of hate.
In the universities and on the internet hatred of
france and europeans is a “soup of the day" served up
daily to impressionable youths who often even hope for
the ultimate destruction of “whites” and frenchmen.
This of course is a psychopathic wish born of
resentment and hatred but it has been allowed to
fester and grow.

The mainstream american and british press is fast
becoming irrelevent to us as well as the american
version of so called "multi culturalism".


Underclasses, whatever their race or religion don’t
need much to explode. When race and religion is a part
of the equation the problems are all the greater.
France needs to carefully consider what kind of
country it wants to be. If left solely to democratic
instincts and so called “multiculturalists” it can be
very ugly.


The poor, the oppressed, should be given more
opportunity. However, these thugs who are modeling
themselves on the american gangster type should be
thoroughly rooted out of our society and given no quarter or sympathy. We don't want that crap in our society - it has done nothing for america. As far as Islam is concerned, Islam simply should not be allowed to spread in the country. Preventative measures need to be taken no matter how much it offends the sensibilities of liberals. The first edict of an Islamified france would be to oppress liberalism. I no
more want france to be islamified than I want it to become a
nation of scientologists-- and I am not afraid to say it out loud.

I am sorry guys, but we are in a culture war and we have liberalism to thank for it. We can have an islamified france, or an american gangsta rap france- OR we can take back our culture and defend it from these low, destructive and mediocre forces. All the "good will" and sympathy for these things usually comes out of penthouse apartments far away from the realties and cultural nightmare that we are creating in the name of "tolerance", "justice" and "equality". I urge many of you to rethink some of your ideas which for the most part have been put into your minds by the mainstream media.

'Just as the japanese will always be japanese the
french will always be french'

Exactly how do you define being French nowadays?? White, middle class & chrisitian?? you are scaring the fuck out of me man.... the very notion of 'being french' is quite irrelevant. It doesn't mean shit actually. Don't forget that over the centuries France has been shaped by countless waves of immigration that all contributed to the cultural richness of France (that very culture you refer to in your post). Race and religion - as you suggest - are NOT the reason behind the riots but rather demographic patterns of people with few opportunities and regularly ostracized by society, combined with poor urban planning and entire urban areas left in total disarray by politicians who pretend to care but dont actually give a damn. it's not the tail that wags the dog. you are totally mistaksen i'm afraid.

and remember that multiculturalism is an asset not a danger.
diversity is power.

why did this jerk bumped up this discussion today? Are you starting the Sarkozy campaign on archinect?

Nicholas, we know it's you, go back to work and stop slacking on archinect.

nicky needs a good....,headbutt.

tout simplemet un raciste, comme un 'frenchman'

now, are the japanese racists? i do not think this can be judged, simply because their cultural milieu is radically different to that of europe's, for instance. i am not well educated in matters japanese, but i would imagine that in time, with possible forthcoming challanges to 'japaneseness' from within, the fringes of a national race might unravel, and one's citizenship would be determined less by 'looking japanese' and more by one's attainment of experience living within the country and one's duties and reponsibilities towards the wider community. this is debatable, of course; again, i am not educated in japanese affairs. but for europe to adopt a similair stance would be a farce; it is not in the education of europe to conserve a purity of race without simultaneously coming across as racist. simply, it is not japan. it is not just a matter of naunces; the 'exile' within europe, be s/he a jew or gypsy at one point and now a moslem, is a catalyst for typical european xenophobia, a xenophobia that crossed the atlantic, killing uncountables of american natives and then blacks. and where it stayed, trapped people of a different sort in ghettos and camps and eliminated them. europe cannot speak japanese, it has earned the right of being the europe of the enlightnement and the europe of the nazis. so don't give us that crap. go salute your Le Pen like a good petit bourgeoisnazi now.

and for you only, our inbred frenchie:

"Just like de great civil rights leader Martin Luther...Van Dross, I has a dream...of little black girls and little white girls...playin wiv each other. Let's make it happen I look out and I see 1000s of people wiv different hopes and different dreams - but it is important never to forget where u all came from - becoz black, white, brown or pakistani we all come from de same place - de punani. Jah bless - bigupyaself Princeton...and keep it real... wesside." ali g in his 2004 Harvard University Commencement Speech