Global Courant
Violent protests in France appear to be slowly subsiding. But the anger remains. The racism of the majority society that has its roots in the country’s colonial history is often denied.
Broken windows, burnt cars, an attack on a mayor’s house. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in protests – sometimes violent – in various cities in France. They are angry over the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old from Algeria, who a week ago was shot dead by a policeman in his car during a traffic stop.
Clashes between mostly young protesters and the police have raised questions. In addition to the large scale of violence and vandalism, the causes are also in question. How much does the death of Nahel and the outrage of the people who have taken to the streets have to do with the systemic racism of French society? Does this have something to do with the country’s colonial past?
French President Emmanuel Macron called Nahel’s murder “unforgivable” and “inexplicable”. But Crystal Fleming, professor of sociology at Stony Brook University in New York, disagrees: “It’s not inexplicable,” she told DW. “It is not a mystery. It’s racism.”
Fleming is of the opinion that the protests and riots after the fatal police shootings were “a ‘reaction to racism, which is linked to colonialism.’ Both, she says, are usually denied and erased (from collective memory) by French authorities and politicians – “despite centuries of racial oppression of minorities and colonized populations”.
“Civilizing mission” or exploitation?
France has been one of Europe’s greatest colonial powers. From the 16th century until the 1970s, the political elites called the “civilizing mission” the use of force of countries and territories all over the world.
While the French Revolution in 1789 promised “liberty, equality and fraternity” to all French men (not women, but that’s another story) in mainland France, in the colonies equality of rights remained a dream. Everyday life there was characterized by repression. Men and women were forced to “assimilate” to French culture and language.
Especially the role of France in Algeria, has remained a very sensitive topic. The North African country was first colonized in 1830 and then integrated into the French national territory. When Algeria regained its independence, a brutal war broke out that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, mostly Algerian, and eventually led to the end of French rule in 1962.
Around the same time, France was forced to give up its other colonies, as these too sought independence. However, France has kept some territories across the ocean to this day, such as New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean or French Guiana in Latin America. But the economic, political and military influence on the former colonies, especially on the African continent, has still remained high. So for example, France also supports authoritarian leaders to protect its interests.
Reflection yes, forgiveness no
French President Emmanuel Macron has been the one who has accepted his country’s colonial past as a “historical crime” more than any other head of state before him. He has promised to return stolen artefacts and to set up commissions to examine France’s role in Algeria and during the Rwandan genocide.
But critics, like Crystal Fleming, claim that doesn’t go far enough. France, many say, must take full responsibility for its past and admit crimes committed during its colonial rule. But Macron has stated that he has no intention of “apologising” for his country’s role in Algeria.
Systemic racism
A part of French society and textbooks argue that colonialism had positive sides. In 2017, far-right politician Marine Le Pen said colonization had “given a lot” to former colonies. The fact that Le Pen made it to the run-off elections in 2017 and 2022 and even, in the next election, has a chance to become the president of France, shows how widespread this opinion still is.
At the same time, “the French government continues to call itself non-racist,” says Fleming, “because it does not collect any census or other data on the race of its citizens.” But the reality of many people with non-French roots, like those who have now come out in protest, is different. “The French police have a problem with systemic racism,” says Rokhaya Diallo, an author and one of France’s best-known anti-racism activists. An accusation that the French government has repeatedly denied. However, research by the Ombudsman for Human Rights showed that young people who are perceived as black or Arab are twenty times more likely to be stopped by the police. Many of them live on the outskirts of metropolitan areas such as Paris, Marseille and Lyon.
Afro-French people live mainly in the suburbs
These banlieues, as the British essayist Johnny Pitts writes in his book “Afropean – Notes from Black Europe”, arose when the Paris that is so popular today was created: In the mid-19th century, Napoleon III commissioned the urban planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann to recreate the capital, with wider streets and a better sewage system – largely funded by wealth from the African colonies.
This is how Paris was created, which is so beautiful and attractive to many admirers, but people with little income were pushed to the outskirts. After World War II, multi-story high-rise buildings were built in the suburbs to house all those who immigrated due to economic development. Since then, the French government has had to endure the accusation of neglecting these squatters. Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France from 2007 to 2012, proposed in 2005, as interior minister, to clean the banlieues with Kärcher high-pressure cleaners, referring not to the floors of houses, but to criminal gangs of young people.
In recent years, there has been a lot of money for projects and dialogues, but very little has changed. A resident of Nanterre, the Paris suburb where Nahel was shot, confirmed this in an interview with DW correspondent Sonia Phalnikar in Paris. The French government has created this “state of deprivation”: “I know what poverty and misery are. And it seems like we can’t get over them. “/DW
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