the french autumn riots of 2005 and the crisis of republican integration

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FRANCIS MESTRIESamong others (Pérez Pérez, 2006).Unemployment rates hovered above10 per cent for a long time and, in2005, they were still at 9.8 percent,the European Union’s sixth worst rate(Pérez Pérez, ibid). The situation wasquite different in the United Statesand United Kingdom, whereunemployment rates were less thanhalf and all immigrants, legal or not,were able to find employment. InFrance, unemployment mostly affectsthe youth, people older than 55, andlowly qualified workers.The suburbs of large cities are theareas hardest hit by unemployment:21 percent of their population isjobless (the overall national average is10 per cent); in the northeasternParisian banlieues where the riotsbegan the rate is as high as 26 percent(Boils, 2006). Young Maghrebians areparticularly affected: in 1992,unemployed youths of Algerian origincomprised 40 percent of the nationalaverage, while the jobless children ofnative French amounted to 11percent. Not even educated beurscould find work: 26.5 percent ofAlgerian men and 36 percent of Algerianwomen were jobless in 1996(Zehraoui, 1999), and discriminationplayed an evident role in this(Tribalat, 1999). It is common foremployers to refuse applicants on thebasis of skin color, surname, or placeof residence. As the leader of theFrench employers association openlystated, “The culture of the banlieues isantithetical to that of firms,” andchildren of immigrants are thought tohave difficulties adapting toworkplace discipline. In Clichy-sous-Bois, the area where the catalyticevents took place, unemployment hadreached 40 percent (Reeve, op. cit.).In such a context and with thewelfare state in the midst of a financialcrisis, subsidies and social educationand health policies “are not enough tobring about social integration,”especially “when prejudice and racial,ethnic, or religious stigmatization limitaccess to employment” (RincónGallardo, 2005).THE DEMOGRAPHIC IMPACTOF IMMIGRATION IN FRANCE.In 1999, 4, 310,000 of France’sresidents (or 7.4 percent of thenational population) had been bornoutside the country. More than 1.5million immigrants had becomenaturalized in the previous decades,and half a million were coloredcitizens hailing from the so-calledDOM-TOM. 5 The main sendingcountries were Algeria (576,000),Portugal (570,000), Morrocco(521,000), Italy (380,800), Spain(316,500), Tunisia (201,700) andTurkey (176,000). France had Europe’slargest Muslim population: 2.5 millionin 1990, 5 million in 2007. Between1980 and 2000, approximately 545,000foreigners entered France legally eachyear, which amounted to just 0.01percent of a total population of 62.75Départements d’outre-mer, or Overseas Departments, and Territoires d’outre-mer, or Overseas Territories.124SECOND SEMESTER 2007MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO
THE FRENCH AUTUMN RIOTS OF 2005million in 2007. By the late 1990s andthe early 2000s immigrants werealmost twice that number. Over twothirds of them were reuniting withtheir families, others were marryingFrench citizens or seeking asylum,and only 12 percent were in Francefor work-related reasons (Le Monde,2006).Even though immigrant flow intoFrance is not massive, it nowcomprises 25 percent of the nation’sdemographic growth, which ischaracterized by low birth rates.Immigrants help counteract theaccelerated ageing of the populationand provide an economically activepopulation for the proximate future,as they tend to have 35 percent morechildren than French families (Boils,op. cit.). Even though this does notpose an immediate threat to Gauldominion, immigrants’ high birthrates worry the right wing and exert atoll on social services.The European Union has anestimated 3 million undocumentedmigrants, 500,000 of which currentlyreside in France. The country receivesbetween 10 and 20,000 of them eachyear (0.03% of the population). Mostare lowly qualified adult men whowork in the informal economy(domestic services, manufacture,construction, agroindustry, andagriculture) under conditions ofexploitation or near-enslavement, orformally unemployed people whosurvive by working on the streets andengaging in small-time trafficking.These undocumented migrants, betterknown as the sans-papiers (or “withoutpapers”), staged several protestsduring the 1990s, participating inchurch takeovers and hunger strikes.They managed to achieve someregularization policies under socialistgovernments but, since 2002, theyhave been systematically hunteddown and deported. The Frenchgovernment has complained thatSpain and Italy tolerate clandestinemigration that subsequently ends upin France.THE CRISIS OF INTEGRATION POLICIESThe youth riots in France’s urban andsocial periphery are the consequenceof a worn out institutional systemthat has exhausted its economic andcultural assimilation capacities, butthey also owe much to increasinglytyrannical measures of politicalcontrol and police repression. “Thecrisis is that of French Republicanism:the French Republic tells everyone that‘liberty, equality, fraternity’ is awonderful promise, but it is not therefor everyone; and when you areyoung, educated, and you know thatthe school system is going to besegregated in actuality (and not justin theory), this is going to be veryfrustrating. This is the only crisis ofsuch magnitude in Europe, a generalinstitutional crisis: it applies to thejustice system, the police, butparticularly to the school system”(Wieviorka, 2006).Indeed, social and politicalinstitutions are in crisis: the Frenchsocial welfare system, one of the most2007 SECOND SEMESTERMIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO125
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