France is in the midst of massive riots over the perceived mistreatment of minority citizens by police. The riots follow shortly on the heels of massive protests against pension reforms pushed by French President Emmanuel Macron. With the country in increasing chaos, the question is, can Macron recover from this, or will the French choose a new standard bearer in the next presidential election? Or will Macron rehabilitate his image by 2027? Marine Le Pen and other candidates who oppose Macron’s policies are waiting in the wing. In Foreign Policy, Michele Barbero explains the issues facing France today, writing:
Violence broke out shortly after the botched traffic stop, quickly spreading from Nanterre to other poor suburbs (banlieues) across the country and then to city centers, with barricades set up, cars and public buildings set on fire, and stores looted. It’s the most serious rioting the country has seen since 2005, when youths largely belonging to ethnic minorities wreaked havoc in France’s toughest neighborhoods for three weeks following the accidental deaths of two teenagers while they were being chased by police.
French police are plagued by “a double problem of racial discrimination and brutality, with neither one being acknowledged by governments past and present,” said Sebastian Roché, an expert on policing at Sciences-Po university in Grenoble.
In France, images of similar incidents “have emerged in the past, but not as damning as these ones,” said Éric Marliere, a sociologist at the University of Lille. “We are looking at a very violent scene that reminds of the George Floyd case” and has contributed to accelerating the protest movement, he said.
This is also yet another major headache for French President Emmanuel Macron, who’s seeking to rebuild his political capital at home and abroad after months of crippling strikes over his pension reform, and has now had to postpone a scheduled trip to Germany in order to deal with the new crisis, after being forced to leave early from a European summit in Brussels to hurry back to Paris last week.
French police have a long history of heavy-handedness, particularly with ethnic minorities. In the early 1960s, officers under the command of Paris police chief Maurice Papon killed dozens, if not hundreds, of Algerians taking part in a demonstration for independence. Over the following decades, the heavily immigrant, poverty- and crime-ridden suburbs at the margins of France’s biggest cities posed a constant challenge for police. But tensions between residents and security forces in the banlieues have grown worse over the past 15 years, according to Roché, particularly as a result of the 2005 riots.
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