Category: "Politics"

30/03/06

02:18:21 pmCategories: Politics

Demonstrators, casseurs and foreign media

After I had posed the previous text, I realised that I had forgotten to mention that the large majority of demonstrators are peaceful and non-violent, and it’s only at the margins and the end of the demo that the situation can escalate. This fact is obvious to someone who is present at these events or who follows French media, however I have a suspicion that foreign media (again) prefer to show burning cars, hooded youth, teargas and water cannons instead of the one million or three who are demonstrating peacefully.

01:37:39 pmCategories: Politics, Riots, Distinctions

Les cassurs – the “demonstration breaker” phenomenon

“The demonstrators shall be protected, and the casseurs shall be taken in for questioning,” Interior Minister Sarkozy said some days ago. It’s not the first time Sarkozy has expresses his binary vision of the youth in this country (“real and fake youth”). For a minister in charge of interior security, the world might be this simple, (though I remember how he during the November riots used the to two single cases of attacks on humans to discredit the whole three week and enormously widespread revolt). To me it seems like this broad casseur category hides at least three distinct, but perhaps related phenomena: There are the anarchists and left wing radicals who attack the police (and far right “fachos”, if present). Attacks on publicity boards (JCDecaux) and perhaps also on banks and multinationals (as is common in i.e. the UK) can probably also be connected to this category of casseurs - although in my opinion a distinction should always be kept in mind between attacks on property and on humans (including police officers).

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27/03/06

02:47:18 amCategories: Fieldwork, Politics, Peculiarities

Busy week

It’s been a busy week. While the youth in this country have been blocking and occupying schools and universities – or protesting against those blocking their universities – or been out in the streets demonstrating, burning paper cars or real cars, tagging, breaking a few bus shelters and windows or robbing demonstrators for their mobiles, I’ve been indoors at various prestigious Parisian venues listening to people discussing discrimination.

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25/03/06

03:59:10 amCategories: Fieldwork, Politics, Riots

Mars – “mois chaud”

It wasn’t the climate the newspaper Le Parisien was thinking of when they some weeks ago wrote that March would be a “hot” month. And indeed they were right…

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17/03/06

11:36:05 pmCategories: Politics, Peculiarities

The strange nature of politics in France - Protesting, part 2

One thing that struck me during the November riots was the high level of understanding they were shown in the French public debate. It seemed to me that quite a few who participated in the public discourse quickly interpreted the burning of state institutions, private cars and local companies in the banlieues as – not acceptable, but, yes understandable – expressions with some sort of political meaning. A friend of mine familiar with politics in Germany asked me if no one had demanded the demission of the Interior Minister, as it is he who is responsible for law and order. And in a German context, according to her, three weeks of youths rioting all over the country would have been an obvious sign that he didn’t do his job properly…

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08/03/06

03:38:31 amCategories: Places, Spaces, Politics, Peculiarities

Contrat premiere embauche - Protesting à la français

Initially, I hadn’t planned to go to the major demonstration against the CPE ("contract 'first employment'") as it only tangentially touches the focus of my fieldwork (tangentially, as the CPE – Contrat Première Embauche – is part of Prime minister Villepin’s plan for égalité des chances: youth unemployment is high in France and even higher in the Zones sensible which is in need of the equal opportunities). But as the echoes of the chanted slogans reached all the way to my flat – situated at least 20 minutes away from the standard demo route Place de la République/Bastille/Place de la Nation – and I saw the diverted traffic as I leaned out of the window, I realised that the scale of the event made it worth defying the heavy rain and head for Nation.

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31/01/06

01:47:31 amCategories: Politics, History

A day in commemoration of slavery

The 10th of May is from now on going to be the national day in commemoration of abolition of slavery. 10th of May in 2001 was the day slavery was declared crime against humanity in France, which was the first country in the world to adopt such a law. It was the deputy from French Guiana, Christiane Taubira, who proposed the law, and its been named Loi Taubira after her.

In his speech, President Chirac proclaimed that “the greatness of a country is to take on all its history, the glorious pages as well as the dark parts. Our history is that of a great nation. Look at her with pride. And look at her as she is. That’s the way a people can unite and become more close(-knit).”

(As a foreigner, I do find interesting this constant return to the greatness of the French nation, and I can’t forget another of Chirac’s speeches lately on the issue of nuclear weapons, but be that as it may).

Le Monde greets Chirac’s speech and holds it together with two other speeches as strong and important moments of his reign as President: 16th July 1995 when he for the first time recognised the French state’s role in the deportation of thousands of Jews during the Second World War; 15th August 2004 when he honoured the North African and African veterans’ contribution to the liberation of France and the speech 30 January 2006.

(Again, many others in this country will not remember Chirac for these three speech, but rather for the one 19 June 1991, gone into history as “le bruit et l’odeur” (the noise and the smell), where the President lately so famous for his antiracist stance made speech worthy of Le Pen. I’d really like to say a lot about it, but be that as well as it may for the moment).

16/01/06

08:42:07 pmCategories: Politics

Security à la français: précarité and insécurité

From a large demonstration 04/10/05: “against uncertainty, for a real increase in buying power and against dismantling of the labour regulations”.

Last week I was back home for a few days, and I went to a seminar on the wide-ranging notion of safety/security (“trygghet”). As it happens, two aspects of “security” play important roles in French politics and society; however, these aspects do not seem to be very high on a security agenda in a Norwegian context. I think this difference in emphasis points to interesting economical and social differences between the two societies.

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