2005 civil unrest in France: Encyclopedia - 2005 civil unrest in France

2005 civil unrest in France

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• Timeline
• Response
• Context

The 2005 civil unrest in France and neighboring countries was a series of riots and other forms of violent clashes between gangs of youths (predominantly of immigration background) and the French Police (as well as the police of neighboring countries). The riots, occurring simultaneously in various poor suburbs of large cities, mainly involved the burning of cars and public buildings as well as consequent clashes with police.

The riots began on Thursday 27 October 2005 in the banlieues of Paris. They peaked on the night of 7 November, affecting 274 communes. On 8 November, President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency using a 1955 law. On 16 November, the French parliament approved a three-month extension of the state of emergency, which ended on the 4 January 2006 [1]. On 17 November, the French police declared a return to a normal situation throughout France, saying that the 98 vehicles torched the previous night corresponded to the usual average. According to the official count, 8,973 vehicles were torched during the 20 nights of rioting, with 2,888 arrests, and 126 police injured ^[2]. On December 10, France's highest administrative body, the Council of State, ruled that the three-month state of emergency decreed to guarantee calm following unrest was legal. It rejected a complaint from 74 law professors (led by Frédéric Rolin) and the Green party, declaring that the conditions that led to the unrest, the quick spread of violence and the possibility that it could recur justify the state of emergency. The Council of State argued that "each night, between 40 to 60 cars are torched, and {that} we have to be cautious with New Year's Eve approaching". The complaint challenged the state of emergency's necessity, and said it compromised fundamental liberties ^[3][4][5][6].

2005 civil unrest in France - Timeline

The riots were triggered by the deaths of two teenagers in Clichy-sous-Bois, a poor commune in an eastern banlieue (suburb) of Paris. Initially confined to the Paris area, the unrest subsequently spread to other areas of the Île-de-France région, and spread through the outskirts of France's urban areas, also affecting some rural areas. After 3 November it spread to other cities in France, affecting all 15 of the large aires urbaines in the country. Thousands of vehicles were burned, and at least one person was killed by the rioters. Close to 2900 rioters were arrested.

On 8 November, President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency effective at midnight. Despite the new regulations, riots continued, though on a reduced scale, the following two nights, and again worsened the third night. On 9 November and the morning of 10 November a school was burned in Belfort, and there was violence in Toulouse, Lille, Strasbourg, Marseille, and Lyon [7].

On 10 November and the morning of 11 November, violence increased overnight in the Paris region, and there were still a number of police wounded across the country [8]. According to the Interior, violence, arson, and attacks on police worsened on the 11th and morning of the 12th, and there were further attacks on power stations, causing a blackout in the northern part of Amiens [9].

Rioting took place in the city center of Lyon on Saturday, 12 November, as young people attacked cars and threw rocks at riot police who responded with tear gas. Also that night, a nursery school was torched in the southern town of Carpentras [10].

On the night of the 14th and the morning of the 15th, 215 vehicles were burned across France and 71 people were arrested [11]. Thirteen vehicles were torched in central Paris, compared to only one the night before. In the suburbs of Paris, firebombs were thrown at the treasury in Bobigny and at an electrical transformer in Clichy-sous-Bois, the neighborhood where the disturbances started. A daycare centre in Cambrai and a tourist agency in Fontenay-sous-Bois were also attacked. Eighteen buses were damaged by arson at a depot in Saint-Etienne. The mosque in Saint-Chamond was hit by three firebombs, which did little damage [12].

Only 163 vehicles went up in flames on the 20th night of unrest, 15 November to 16, leading the French government to claim that the country was returning to an "almost normal situation". During the night's events, a Roman Catholic church was burned and a vehicle was rammed into an unoccupied police station in Romans-sur-Isère. In other incidents, a police officer was injured while making an arrest after youths threw bottles of acid at the town hall in Pont-l'Évêque, and a junior high school in Grenoble was set on fire. Fifty arrests were carried out across the country [13] [14].

On 16 November, The French parliament approved a three-month extension of the state of emergency (which ended on the 4 January 2006 [15]) aimed at curbing riots by urban youths. The Senate on Wednesday passed the extension - a day after a similar vote in the lower house. The laws allow local authorities to impose curfews, conduct house-to-house searches and ban public gatherings. The lower house passed them by a 346-148 majority, and the Senate by 202-125[16]. The same day, hooded youths burned two cars, erected street barricades, and fired gunshots at police in the town of Pointe-à-Pitre on the island of Guadeloupe, a French territory in the Caribbean. Police returned fire.

A wine festival in Grenoble, Le Beaujolais nouveau, ended in rioting on the night of 18 November, with a crowd throwing rocks and bottles at riot police. Tear gas was deployed by officers. Sixteen youths and 17 police officers were injured. Though those events might have been easily linked with the riots in Paris suburbs, it appears they differ completely in nature and might just well be considered as predictable "wine festival" casualties, caused by misunderstanding and alcohol.

[17]

On December 10, France's highest administrative body, the Council of State, ruled that the three-month state of emergency decreed to guarantee calm following unrest was legal. It rejected a complaint from 74 law professors (led by Frédéric Rolin) and the Green party, declaring that the conditions that led to the unrest that started on October 27, the quick spread of violence and the possibility that it could recur justify the state of emergency, which is to end in mid-February. The Council of State argued that "each night, between 40 to 60 cars are torched, and we have to be cautious with New Year's Eve approaching". The complaint challenged the state of emergency's necessity, and said it compromised fundamental liberties. The Syndicat de la Magistrature, a judge union, declared to Le Monde that "with such a decision, it can be feared that the state of emergency will be declared each Christmas".

2005 civil unrest in France - The event that triggered the riots

On Thursday 27 October 2005, a group of ten high school teenagers were playing football in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. The teenagers allegedly ran and hid when police officers arrived to conduct ID checks.

Three of the teenagers, thinking they were being chased by the police, climbed a wall to hide in a power substation [18] [19]. "Bouna Traore, a 15-year-old of Malian background, and Zyed Benna, a 17-year-old of Tunisian origin" [20] (photo) were electrocuted by a transformer in the electric substation. Muhttin Altun, 17 (whose parents, Haseyin and Aïcha, are Turkish Kurds) was injured and hospitalized. A friend of the three stated that Clichy-sous-Bois "has three principal communities, the Arabs, the Turks and the Blacks. The three victims represented each one a community". [21] [22]

The New York Times reported, citing two police investigations, that the incident began at 17:20 on Thursday, 27 October 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois when police were called to a construction site there to investigate a possible break-in. Six youths were detained by 17:50. During questioning at the police station in Livry-Gargan at 18:12, blackouts occurred at the station and in nearby areas. These were caused, police say, by the electrocution of the two boys and the injury to the third. [23]

"According to statements by Mr. Altun, who remains hospitalized with injuries, a group of ten or so friends had been playing football on a nearby field and were returning home when they saw the police patrol. They all fled in different directions to avoid the lengthy questioning that youths in the housing projects say they often face from the police. They say they are required to present identity papers and can be held as long as four hours at the police station, and sometimes their parents must come before the police will release them." [24]

There is controversy over whether the teens were actually chased. The local prosecutor, François Molins, has said they believed so, but the police were actually after other suspects attempting to avoid an identity check [25]. Molins and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy maintain that the dead teenagers had not been "physically pursued" by the police. This is disputed by some: The Australian reports "Despite denials by police officials and Sarkozy and de Villepin, friends of the boys said they were being pursued by police after a false accusation of burglary and that they 'feared interrogation'" [26]. There were initial police accusations that the boys were thieves and well known by the police, accusations immediately echoed by Dominique de Villepin on national television, which turned out to be false and were later withdrawn. Such inconsistent statements by police and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy have fueled public mistrust of the authorities since the riots began.

This event ignited pre-existing tensions. Protesters told The Associated Press the unrest was an expression of frustration with high unemployment and police harassment and brutality in the areas. "People are joining together to say we've had enough," said one protester. "We live in ghettos. Everyone lives in fear." [27][28] The rioters' suburbs are also home to a large North African immigrant population, allegedly adding ethnic and religious tensions which some right-wing commentators believe contribute further to such frustrations. According to Pascal Mailhos, chief of the Renseignements Généraux, the influence of radical islamism in the 2005 civil unrest in France was nil. [29]

2005 civil unrest in France - Context

On 5 November the New York Times reported the riots had not taken strong ideological or religious overtones, and "while a majority of the youths committing the acts are Muslim, and of African or North African origin" local residents say that "second-generation Portuguese immigrants and even some children of native French have taken part." [30]

The BBC reported that French society's negative perceptions of Islam and of immigrants have alienated some French Muslims and may have been a factor in the causes of the riots; "Islam is seen as the biggest challenge to the country's secular model in the past 100 years". [31] At the same time, the editorial questioned whether or not such alarm is justified, citing that France's Muslim ghettos are not hotbeds of separatism and that "the suburbs are full of people desperate to integrate into the wider society." [32] The BBC also reported that there was a "huge well of fury and resentment among the children of North African and African immigrants in the suburbs of French cities." [33]

The inhabitants of the French suburbs (banlieue) suffer from unemployment at a much higher level than that of the rest of France. According to the BBC, unemployment of people of foreign origin is 1.5 times higher than that of people of French origin, after adjusting for educational qualifications. An unemployment rate of 5% for French university graduates can be compared to the unemployment rate of 26.5% for university graduates of north African origin (BBC). Racial and religious discrimination against persons with dark skin or Muslim-sounding names has been cited as a major cause of unhappiness in the areas affected. According to the BBC, "Those who live there say that when they go for a job, as soon as they give their name as "Mamadou" and say they live in Clichy-sous-Bois, they are immediately told that the vacancy has been taken." The nonprofit organization SOS Racisme, associated with the French Socialist Party, said that after they sent identical CVs to French companies with European- and African or Muslim-sounding names attached, they found CVs with African or Muslim sounding names attached were discarded. In addition, they have claimed widespread use of markings indicating race in employers' databases and that discrimination is more widespread for those with college degrees than for those without. [34] [35] [36]

2005 civil unrest in France - Assessment of rioting

Assessments of the extent of violence and damage that occurred during the riots are under way. Figures may be incomplete or inaccurate. Some French media sources, including France 3, have decided not to report the extent of damage so as to avoid any risk of inflaming the situation. [37] After the first few days of rioting media organisations agreed to publish only the total number of torched cars, without giving locations, to avoid encouraging any type of contest between rioters. The French Federation of Insurance Companies (FFSA), has given a preliminary estimate for the total damage up to November 14, 2005 as being up to €200 million for property and casualty losses, inclusive of €20 million for torched cars.

Dominique de Villepin, in an interview to the US TV channel CNN, said:

2005 civil unrest in France - Summary statistics

• Started: 17:20 on Thursday, 27 October 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois.
• Towns affected: 274 (on 7 November [38])
• Property damage: More than 8,970 vehicles (Not including buildings).
• Monetary damage: Estimated at €200 Million.

• Arrests: 2,888
• Deaths: 1 (Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec)
• Police and firefighters injured: 126

Source: French Interior Ministry, BBC News unless stated

2005 civil unrest in France - Figures and tables

Note: In the table and charts, events reported as occurring during a night and the following morning are listed as occurring on the day of the morning. The timeline article does the opposite.

[58][59] [60]

[63]

[72]

2005 civil unrest in France - List of areas affected

• Paris (3rd, 17th arrondissements)
• Seine-Saint-Denis: Aubervilliers, Aulnay-sous-Bois, Bagnolet, Bobigny, Bondy, Clichy-sous-Bois, Drancy, Épinay-sur-Seine, Gagny, La Courneuve, Le Blanc-Mesnil, Le Bourget, Montfermeil, Montreuil, Neuilly Sur Marne Noisy-le-Grand, Noisy-le-Sec, Pantin, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Romainville, Rosny-sous-Bois, Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen, Sevran, Stains, Tremblay-en-France, Villepinte, Villetaneuse
• Yvelines: Achères, Les Mureaux, Sartrouville, Trappes
• Seine-et-Marne: Meaux, Torcy, Melun area
• Val-de-Marne: Champigny, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, Ormesson-sur-Marne, Villejuif, Villeneuve-Saint-Georges
• Essonne: Athis-Mons, Evry, Corbeil-Essonnes, Saint-Michel-sur-Orge, Brétigny-sur-Orge, Grigny, Fleury-Mérogis
• Hauts-de-Seine: Asnières, Clamart, Colombes, Gennevilliers, Sèvres, Suresnes
• Val-d'Oise: Argenteuil, Villiers-le-Bel

• Ain: Bourg-en-Bresse, Meximieux
• Aisne: Soissons
• Alpes-Maritimes: Drap, Nice, Saint-André, Cannes
• Bas-Rhin: Schiltigheim, Strasbourg
• Bouches-du-Rhône: Marseille
• Côte d'Or: Dijon
• Doubs: Montbéliard
• Eure: Évreux [75]
• Finistère: Brest, Quimper
• Gironde: Bègles, Blanquefort, Bordeaux, Lormont
• Guadeloupe: Pointe-à-Pitre[76]

• Haute-Garonne: Toulouse
• Haute-Marne: Saint-Dizier
• Hautes-Pyrénées: Tarbes
• Haute-Savoie: Sallanches, Seynod, Cluse, Ville-la-Grand, Annemasse, Rumilly
• Haut-Rhin: Colmar, Illzach, Mulhouse
• Hérault: Béziers, Frontignan, Ganges, Lunel, Montpellier, Saint-André-de-Sangonis, Sète
• Ille-et-Vilaine: Saint-Malo, Rennes
• Indre-et-Loire: Tours
• Isère: Echirolles, Grenoble

• Loir-et-Cher: Blois
• Loire : Roanne, Saint-Étienne
• Loire-Atlantique: Nantes, Saint-Herblain
• Loiret: Montargis, Orléans
• Mayenne: Laval
• Meurthe-et-Moselle: Nancy
• Moselle: Guénange, Metz, Rombas, Thionville
• Nord: Dunkerque, Hem, Loos, Marcq-en-Baroeul, Lille, Mons-en-Baroeul, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Valenciennes, Wattrelos
• Oise: Beauvais, Méru, Nogent-sur-Oise, Creil
• Pas-de-Calais: Lens, Calais, Arras, Le Portel, Hénin-Beaumont
• Pyrénées-Orientales: Canet-en-Roussillon, Perpignan
• Puy-de-Dôme: Clermont-Ferrand
• Pyrénées-Atlantiques: Pau
• Rhône: Lyon, Rillieux-la-Pape, Vénissieux
• Sarthe: Le Mans
• Saône-et-Loire: Montceau-les-Mines, Chalon-sur-Saône
• Seine Maritime: Le Havre, Rouen
• Somme: Amiens
• Tarn-et-Garonne: Montauban, La Ville-Dieu-du-Temple
• Territoire de Belfort: Belfort
• Var: Draguignan, Fréjus, La Seyne-sur-Mer, Toulon
• Vaucluse: Apt, Avignon, Bédoin, Carpentras, Maubec, Pertuis, Valréas
• Vosges: Épinal

2005 civil unrest in France - Related events in other countries

•  Belgium

•  Denmark

•  Germany

•  Greece

•  Netherlands

•  Spain

•  Switzerland

2005 civil unrest in France - Response

2005 civil unrest in France - Political

Right wing Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy after the fourth night of riots declared a zero tolerance policy towards urban violence and announced that seventeen companies of riot police (C.R.S.) and seven mobile police squadrons (escadrons de gendarmerie mobile) would be stationed in contentious Paris neighborhoods. Sarkozy has said that he believes that some of the violence may be at the instigation of organized gangs. "... All of this doesn't appear to us to be completely spontaneous," he said [116]. He also described the protestors as "rabble" and called for the troubled suburbs to be "Karcherised" - a reference to a common brand of high-pressure industrial cleaner. [117] The families of the two youths killed, after refusing to meet with Sarkozy, met with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on 3 November. Azouz Begag, delegate minister for the promotion of equal opportunity, criticized Sarkozy for the latter's use of "imprecise, warlike semantics". [118]. On 5 November, Paris prosecutor Yves Bot told Europe 1 radio that "This is done in a way that gives every appearance of being coordinated." The controversial Union of Islamic Organisations of France issued a fatwa against the riots, without much results. The mufti of Marseilles opposed Nicolas Sarkozy's controversial use of Islamic organizations, declaring that their role was not to intercede for the youth.

President Jacques Chirac announced a national state of emergency on 8 November. On 8 November, Lilian Thuram, a famous soccer member of the Higher Council for Integration, blamed Sarkozy : [119]. He explained that discrimination and unemployment is the root of the evil. On 9 November 2005, Nicolas Sarkozy issued an order to deport foreigners convicted of involvement, provoking concerns from the left-wing, including for example SOS Racisme. Mr Sarkozy told parliament that 120 foreigners — "not all of whom are here illegally" — had been called in by police, accused of taking part in the nightly attacks. "I have asked the prefects to deport them from our national territory without delay, including those who have a residency visa," he said. The far-right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen agreed, stating that naturalized French rioters should have their citizenship revoked. A demonstration against the expulsion of all foreign rioters and demanding the end of the state of emergency, was called for on November 15 in Paris by left-wing and human rights organizations.

On the 20 November 2005, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced tightened controls on immigration: Authorities will increase enforcement of requirements that immigrants seeking 10-year residency permits or French citizenship master the French language and integrate into society. France also plans to crack down on fraudulent marriages that some immigrants use to acquire residency rights and launch a stricter screening process for foreign students. Anti-racism groups widely opposed the measures, saying that greater government scrutiny of immigrants could stir up racism and racist acts. [120]

2005 civil unrest in France - Police

Sarkozy stated that police officers should be armed with non-lethal weapons to combat urban violence [121]. Prior to the riots, he had already equipped the police with flash-ball and tasers, which has been criticized by Amnesty International, concerned by risks of abuse. French national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that there appeared to be no coordination among gangs in different areas. But he said youths in individual neighborhoods were communicating by cellphone text messages, online blogs, and/or email — arranging meetings and alerting one another other about possible police operations. An extra 2,600 police were drafted on 6 November. On 7 November, de Villepin on the TF1 television channel announced the deployment of 18,000 police, supported by a 1,500 strong reserve. Sarkozy suspended eight police officers for beating up someone they had arrested, an act caught by a camera [122].

2005 civil unrest in France - Media Coverage

Jean-Claude Dassier, News director general at the private channel TF1 and one of France's leading TV news executives, has admitted to self censoring the coverage of the riots in the country for fear of encouraging support for far-right politicians; while public television station France 3 has stopped reporting the numbers of torched cars, apparently in order not to encourage some race and "record making" between delinquent groups. [123] [124]

Foreign news coverage was criticized by president Chirac as showing in some cases excessiveness (démesure)[125] and Prime Minister Villepin said in an interview to CNN[126] the events should not be called riots as the situation was not violent to the extent of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

2005 civil unrest in France - Aftermath

In the night of December 31, 2005 and January 1, 2006 the number of torched cars throughout France was higher than other years ^{[citation needed]}. In the morning of January 1, between Nice and Toulon, between 20 and 40 youths aboard a commuter train bound for Lyon via Marseille robbed and assaulted passangers (two people reported stolen wallets and cellular phones), even sexually assaulting one women. The news was only released three days later, and not covered by most international media. [127]. The Socialist Party required further informations on the incident from the government, while a highly ranked public servant said that the publicity made to the event did not match the reality of facts [128].

2005 civil unrest in France - Notes

1. ^  Article from Le Monde
2. ^  "Scotsman" on renewal of state of emergency
3. ^  [http://paris.indymedia.org/article.php3?id_article=47874 Indymedia on renewal of state of emergency, #torched cars}}
4. ^  "Each night between 40 and 60 cars are torched" according to the Council of State in "Le Canard Enchaine #4442, 14 December 2005.
5. ^  Renewal of state of emergency (article from Le Monde)

See also

• List of riots
• French May of 1968, the major uprising in 20th century France
• L.A. riot of 1992, another example of a riot ignited by alleged police violence
• 2005 Sydney race riots

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