A pair of articles from the Sept. 30-Oct. 6 issue of France-Amerique (Le Figaro's American weekly) offer some cause for hope that France is getting ready to pull itself out of its downward spiral. Last November, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy referred to the young rioters in the French housing projects as "racaille" ("scum" or "rabble"). At time, the chattering classes were outraged, in part because the racaille that Sarkozy was talking about were almost all immigrants (or children of immigrants) from North Africa or West Africa. But the racaille remark turned out not to be a mega-gaffe, as the intelligentsia had predicted. To the contrary, Sarkozy's tough talk about youthful criminals has proved to be enormously popular. A new poll shows that 77% of the French public (including 74% of persons aged 18-24) agree that the French system is too lenient on juvenile delinquents. The agreements cuts across all demographics and party lines.
Le Figaro suggests that the racaille comment was a brilliant, deliberate political move by Sarkozy: while many French citizens realize that France's statist economic system needs to liberalize, they are reluctant to confront the issue publicly. By proposing crack-downs on young criminals, Sarkozy has made himself the leader on a topic of national near-consensus, and thereby shifted the focus away from his economic ideas. Le Figaro credits Sarkozy for realizing that if the French want a their next president to be a mommy who will protect them from the outside world, Sarkozy will never be able to out-mommy Segolene Royal, the leading Socialist candidate (who, within the French Socialist Party context, leans to the right). Accordingly, Sarkozy is running as the daddy candidate, who will take control of the housing projects and suburbs which have been turned into criminal havens, beyond the reach of French law.
Sources: Alexis Brezet, "Sarkozy: le pari du peuple" & Judith Waintraub, "La justice n'est pas assez severe selon 77% des Francais."
French Public Ready to Crack Down on Criminals:
Maybe Kopel should critique his own country before making forays into territories he knows little about. Stick to assault weapons Dave.
Uh, Lyons didn't make any racist remarks. Maybe Fox genuinely failed to understand the context, maybe they were just looking for an excuse to get rid of him, maybe your post was astoundingly off-topic, but in any event, you've failed to make a complete presentation of the facts.
I won't even explain the rest because it would "like teaching pigs to sing." It would waste my time, and annoy you.
You'll have to sit through an ad, but http://www.salon.com/sports/col/kaufman/2006/10/16/monday/
Not really. Give them to the Germans and skip the middleman.
Didn't sound rascist to me, but I think South Park isn't offensive, so.....
Circling back to Kopel's post, French electoral news is pretty uninteresting.
For the record, the French education system isn't quite one to be cited in example when it comes to multiculturalism. History classes, even in the overwhelmingly "multicultural" run-down suburban areas, still insist on France being the land of the "French race". History books in classrooms still start with: "Nos ancêtres, les Gaulois..." (Our ancestors, the Gallic people...) So far for Abdullah, Mohammed and Fatima.
As to DK's post, comparing the French racial dilemma to other countries (such as, for example, Canada, which has a much higher racial mix and immigration ratio but deals with much less racial tensions) points to other factors than ways to curb the youth crime rate (racial ghettos, failure of racial acculturation, endemic poverty in the suburbs, etc.) However, DK's post point to a valuable parameter: how the French feel about the problem and its solution. It seems, to a majority of them, repression is the path the nation needs to take. Or so does the staff of France-Amérique, a conservative paper, interpreting polls.
Notice I said Europe and not France. Of course France is part of Europe, but as you point out they don’t buy into multiculturalism. If we believe the press, many North African illegal migrants try desperately to reach the UK by hopping on to trains (at great personal risk) going through the Channel Tunnel. They know the British police are much less likely to stop them on the street. They know it’s harder to get deported than it is in France.
My comment was motivated by the following article in the International Herald Tribune, Moderate Europeans Losing Faith in Islam. The lead line reads:
A racaille is a French thug, usually of Arab origins, who is distinguishable by his clothes: a Lacoste cap, a collared t-shirt, bright coloured shell suit bottoms preferably tucked into nike socks, and a phone hanging from his neck.
"Sarko" made headlines with his declarations that he would "karcherise" the ghettos of "la racaille" - words the U.S. press, with glaring inadequacy, has translated to mean "clean" the ghettos of "scum." But these two words have an infinitely harsher and insulting flavor in French.
"Karcher" is the well-known brand name of a system of cleaning surfaces by super-high-pressure sand-blasting or water-blasting that very violently peels away the outer skin of encrusted dirt - like pigeon-shit - even at the risk of damaging what's underneath.
Interestingly they prefer to describe the French as cheese-eating surrender monkeys, and to blame France's issues with Muslims on the "weakness" of multiculturalism and tolerance.
It's almost as if they derive some psychological satisfaction from thinking of the French as weaklings, independent of actual facts about the world...
Now why would that be the case?
(thinks briefly about gun nuts...)
Interesting.
Real multuculturalism is cultures peacefully coexisting with each other. Real tolerance is people getting along with people despite real or perceived shorcomings.
The French government can play tough with teenage punks or girls who want to wear the hijab to school. But France's opposition to the Iraq War and its apparent leniency toward Palestinian terror (not that the US has been tough enough...) attract the surrender monkey rhetoric.
I really can´t track any clear multicultural trace from the country of "La Gloire"...and in some sense I believe that the "closing" of french culture is going to grow more intense as long as anglo culture continues to reclaim the attention of the world.
France is very well known for it´s concern with the contamination of the french idiom by english vocabules. It´s really ironic that in XIX century Brazil, we had the same problem with french as a language...
France is kind of stuck here. On the one hand, they are incredibly chauvinistic and superior regarding their oh so wonderful culture (which apparently, they need to FINE people in order to maintain), but on the other hand want not to be seen as mean to the muslims.
Australia is another country that at first kind of rolled over in regards to violence and threats, but is now getting tougher.
One could hardly ignore the parallel between France as seen from inside and the famous Astérix le Gaulois illustrated series. It is part of a vast literature depicting France fighting against invading forces.
A. Zarkov:
I had noticed. But I understood your comment (to recall it: 'The Europeans are starting to have second thoughts about “multiculturalism.”') must have included France in the European lot, accordingly to DK's original post (which addressed a French, rather than an European problem).
Also, although I can easily consider "to karcherise" being a rougher term than "to clean", I can't agree with your claim that 'racaille' "[has] an infinitely harsher and insulting flavor in French [as scum (its English equivalent)]". Being a French speaking individual myself, I must disagree with that assertion. Racaille is not a lovely word, but certainly not harsher or much more insulting than scum.
I don’t make the claim that “racaille” carries more insult than “scum,” that comes from the Guardian. Note it says: But these two words have an infinitely harsher and insulting flavor in French …”
Now I agree that “scum” is pretty insulting, but not being a native speaker of French, I can’t judge whether that’s worse than “racaille.” People intimately familiar with current French language and culture can best address these fine points.
Good question. As many interpret Sarkozy's comments in a different way: left wing movements tend to see them as an insult to the global population of the ghettos, many see them as strictly directed at the delinquants, others see that as an insult to intelligence as, clearly, repression never did the thing to straighten the situation since the 60s.