This 'n' That

Friday, November 11, 2005

The Weary French

French Stage Sit-In to Protest Violence

November 11, 2005 12:59 PM EST

PARIS - Police tightened security in central Paris on Friday with riot forces and bomb squads along the Champs-Elysees, and angry residents of riot-torn suburbs staged a sit-in Friday near the Eiffel Tower, calling for an end to more than two weeks of arson and vandalism across France.

The moves came as the wave of violence that spread outward from Paris's impoverished outlying neighborhoods appeared to be calming in other French cities but remained persistent in the capital.

"Stop the Violence," read one banner draped on the Wall of Peace near the Eiffel Tower. Some of the 200 demonstrators - a small turnout in protest-friendly France - waved white flags.

The dozens of civic groups timed their demonstrations to coincide with official military commemorations for Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I. Hours before the sit-in, bomb squad police with dogs and metal-detecting wands screened spectators as a military parade processed down the famed Paris avenue.

"Today, we don't want an armistice - we want peace," national police chief Michel Gaudin said. "An armistice is a temporary halt. What we want is definitive peace for the suburbs."

Police blocked off large swaths of central Paris, with trucks of riot police also deployed near the presidential palace. Some 715 officers brought in from other districts raised the full deployment to 2,220.

In another security measure, Paris police announced a ban from Saturday morning to Sunday morning on public gatherings that "could provoke or encourage disorder." The police statement cited concerns about a string of mobile phone or Internet messages - methods neighborhood youths have used to organize themselves during the riots - calling for gatherings and urging "violent actions" in the French capital.

The unrest has weakened in intensity across the rest of France under state-of-emergency measures enacted Wednesday and a heavy police presence. On Thursday, a 15th consecutive night of violence saw fewer skirmishes and fewer cars burned - 463, down from 482 the previous night, police said. Among the few buildings hit was a village banquet hall vandalized and burned in the southeastern Drome region, officials said.

In suburban Paris, however, the number of car burnings increased to 111, from 84 the night before.

"We have seen a continued drop beyond Paris, but persistence near the capital," national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. "We cannot yet claim victory. The drop remains fragile."

France's foreign minister, speaking in Ukraine after meeting his counterpart, also said Friday that order had been restored in "most cities."

"The situation is being stabilized," Philippe Douste-Blazy said in Kiev.

The mayhem sweeping neglected and impoverished neighborhoods with large African and Arab communities has forced France to confront anger building for decades among residents who complain of discrimination and unemployment. Although many of the French-born children of Arab and black African immigrants are Muslim, police say the violence is not being driven by Islamic groups.

President Jacques Chirac acknowledged Thursday that France must confront the social inequalities and prejudice that has fueled the violence - France's worst since the 1968 student-worker uprising.

"There is a need to respond strongly and rapidly to the undeniable problems faced by many residents of underprivileged neighborhoods around our cities," Chirac said.

"Whatever our origins, we are all the children of the Republic, and we can all expect the same rights."

The first night of violence on Oct. 27 was touched off by youths angered by the accidental deaths of two teenagers who believed they were being chased by police. The teens hid in a power substation and were electrocuted.

Rioting swiftly spread from the northeastern suburban Paris town of Clichy-sous-Bois and grew into a nationwide wave of arson and nightly clashes between youths armed with firebombs and police retaliating with tear gas.

The Justice Ministry said Friday that 398 people have been jailed since the violence began - 272 convicted in expedited trials and the rest detained pending court appearances. Eighty-one were minors.

Bursts of similar violence have erupted in places like neighboring Germany and Belgium, in what authorities believe may be copycat attacks. In Athens, Greece, about 70 youths carrying clubs laid siege Friday to the entrance of the French Institute to express support for the youths in France. They smashed window and hurled paint at the building, though no injuries or arrests were reported.

Residents representing nearly 160 suburban communities were to stage a sit-in Friday afternoon at the Wall of Peace on the Champ de Mars, near the Eiffel Tower, and possibly hold a peace march.

March organizer Banlieues Respects, a group whose name means "Suburb Respect," issued a statement urging "an immediate end to the violence and for peace to return to the neighborhoods where our parents, brothers and sisters have lived for the past two weeks in a climate of uncertainty."

Police on Thursday suspended eight officers, two of them who allegedly beat a man who was detained, causing "superficial lesions" on the forehead and the right foot, the Interior Ministry said.

Three of the officers were released Friday; the five others were expected to appear before a judge before being placed under investigation - a step short of formal charges, said prosecutors on condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

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Associated Press reporters D'Arcy Doran, Cecile Brisson and Thierry Boinet contributed to this report.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Monday, November 07, 2005

An American in Paris Thinks It is Safe. But is it?

November 7, 2005
Letter From Paris
For Tourists, a Calmer Paris

By DONALD MORRISON
For a city under siege, Paris, in its center, is oddly pleasant these days. The big department stores throb with shoppers. Strollers throng the Champs-Elysées. Outdoor cafes buzz with people taking advantage of the unseasonably seductive mid-autumn sun.

Police officers are, if anything, less evident than usual. The traffic officers who set up shop on the busy avenue outside my Paris apartment nearly every evening to nab drunken drivers and expired-license holders have failed to materialize lately. It's a great time to be a motorist in central Paris.

Indeed, the thing to know about "les émeutes," the riots that have wracked much of France in recent days, is that the Paris of tourists - the kingdom of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, L'Opéra and just about every other famous site - remains largely untouched. So far, no center-city businesses or museums are known to have closed because of the rioting, no Métro subway trains have been stoned or hijacked, and taxis remain as plentiful as ever (or as elusive, depending on your outlook). The various French police forces - which report to the national government, not the localities - have evidently been pulled off the central streets and deployed elsewhere. The effect, paradoxically, has been to lower the stress level for the average tourist: With fewer riot cops in view, you're more likely to think about things besides rioting.

The reality - contrary to what foreigners may deduce from television broadcasts of burning cars with the word "Paris" superimposed over them - is that the rioting remains distant from visitors. It has so far been confined to a handful of relatively distant, heavily working-class, immigrant communities. Inside the Périphérique, the highway that rings Paris and serves as an informal city line, life goes on pretty much as normal. That's because in Paris, unlike most big American cities, the rich and the middle-class tend to live in the center of town. The poor are relegated to the "banlieues" - the decrepit bedroom communities at the far ends of commuter rail lines, where tourists rarely go.

Except, perhaps, when they arrive. Charles de Gaulle Airport, the main point for arrivals from overseas, lies about 15 miles northeast of the city. The route from the airport to the center of Paris passes directly through the riot-torn district of Seine-St.-Denis. One of the cheapest ways into the city from de Gaulle is the RER B train (about $10). Service has been disrupted in recent days, and one train was hit by rocks. The United States Embassy in Paris has been advising visitors to avoid the train. (For additional information about buses and trains in Paris, click here.)

But that warning may be overblown. Nearly all flights from North America land during daylight, and so far the rioting has taken place only after dark. (The sun sets around 6 p.m. in Paris these presolstice days.) Another alternative: the Roissybus and Air France buses that go from Charles de Gaulle to various points in the city. And of course, worried travelers can always grab a taxi.

The route by bus and taxi is highway almost the entire journey and considered safe. Once inside the penumbra of tourist hotels, visitors are largely oblivious to trouble - unless they turn on the television. Indeed, the only foreigner known to have been injured so far is a reporter for the Korean broadcaster KBS who was covering riots in the northern suburb of Aubervilliers.

The French seem mortified by the upheaval. Television and radio newscasts devote a surprising amount of space to foreign press coverage. The cautionary statements for travelers issued by the United States and several other governments are especially galling. Since France is perhaps the world's most popular tourist destination, any threat to the visitor flow is by definition a national crisis. Yet the riots are also a serious blow to French national self-esteem - and to the notion of a "French model" of social organization, with high taxes, generous social benefits and a strict secularism that prevents nearly any concession to Islam. Television talk shows, which the French seem to have more of than almost any other developed country, have been given over almost completely to discussion about the rioting. Much of the discourse has centered on a novel topic for France: the possible introduction of "American-style" affirmative action to address the country's ethnic and class divides.

For those still living calmly in central Paris, there are more serious reasons for concern. On Sunday night, several cars were torched in the 17th Arrondissement, just inside the Périphérique. Worse, four vehicles were burned near République, a trendy area of shops and restaurants at the junction of the 3rd, 10th and 11th Arrondissements - well within the Périphérique and only about a mile north of the Centre Georges-Pompidou modern art museum. One potentially troublesome tourist outpost is the Gare du Nord, home of the high-speed Eurostar train to London and Brussels. Though the surrounding area in the 10th Arrondissement has been in the throes of gentrification for years, it remains partly an immigrant neighborhood on the northern outskirts of central Paris.

Darkness is descending over Paris as I write. Somewhere in the distant suburbs, my local traffic officers are facing dangers that won't involve writing parking tickets. In a couple of hours, I must go to the Gare du Nord to meet a nervous visitor arriving on the evening's second-to-last Eurostar from London. Will tonight be the night when the social problems France has been storing up for decades spill over into the center of the republic's capital city? Wish me luck.


Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company