VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France (AP) – French officials point to a host of causes—poverty, unemployment, the influence of criminal gangs—for riots that erupted this week.
But there’s one taboo issue that officially colorblind France has been unable to confront: race.
The violence, like riots that spread nationwide for three weeks in exposed how parts of France have divided along color lines, with blacks and Arabs trapped in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods—like Villiers-le-Bel, in the northern suburbs of Paris, where gangs attacked police and burned cars and buildings this week.
“Among the rioters, the very large majority come from immigrant backgrounds,” said Douhane Mohamed, a police commander. “Why? We mustn’t kid ourselves: there is a direct link between urban violence and ghettos, and the majority of people with immigrant roots live in ghettos.”
France does not like to see its recurrent, and some say worsening, bouts of urban violence through the prism of race or color. Rioters are often described simply as “youths,” while poor projects with large concentrations of immigrants are “sensitive urban zones.”
In the name of equality, France has so idealized the melting pot that it has made its minorities invisible—on paper at least. The country does not compile statistics on the foreign-born or their French-born children. France, a nation of 60 million people, has the largest Muslim community in western Europe but does not know how many Muslims live here. The number is estimated at about 5 million—though some experts disagree.
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