French estates blame social ills for violence

from Reuters

By Kerstin Gehmlich

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France (Reuters) - Unemployment, poverty, police victimization, and poor housing top the long list of problems that residents of the run-down housing estates of Paris blame for violence that erupted this week.

There is nothing but scorn for President Nicolas Sarkozy's view that the unrest was not rooted in social crisis.

"Violence is wrong. But it comes from somewhere," said Ali Hammudi, a worker in Villiers-le-Bel, where the unrest broke out on Sunday after two teenagers died in a collision with a police car.

"Youths here have so many problems -- unemployment, housing, poverty. They don't know how to get out of it ... and the government hasn't done anything about it," Hammudi said, parking his car next to a vehicle torched in the disturbances.

On Thursday, Sarkozy blamed a "thugocracy" of criminals for the violence and rejected suggestions it was the result of social deprivation.

A heavy police presence has kept a lid on violence for the past two nights but the disturbances have revived memories of 2005 riots, when youths torched thousands of cars after two teenagers were electrocuted while apparently fleeing police.

Many young people say they feel stigmatized by police and discriminated against when trying to find a job or an apartment. They say they struggle to leave the often isolated estates, which tend to have poor transport links into central Paris.

In 2005, the conservative government in which Sarkozy was interior minister promised for deprived neighborhoods, home to many immigrants from Northern Africa and West Africa as well as their children.

NO CHANGE

Student Zacara said nothing had changed since then.

"They drew no lessons from 2005. And things can start again elsewhere any time," said the 17-year old.

"We need to make ourselves heard," said Zacara, who declined to give his last name. "Violence isn't good. But we must get people's attention somehow, no?"

Several hundred people silently marched through the streets of Villiers-le-Bel on Thursday, walking behind the coffin of one of the two teenagers killed in the crash on Sunday.

A public prosecutor has said an initial report cleared police of blame in what she said was a road traffic accident.

But some friends of the death youths question police actions after the crash and the speed with which help arrived, highlighting deep mistrust between police and some locals.

"Police are angry at the young people and they are angry at police," said Naziha Benaddi, a 34-year old woman of Moroccan origin. "We just want the truth to be told (on the crash)."

Benaddi said she was relieved that calm seemed to have returned over the past few days.

But many residents also feel uncomfortable with the heavy police presence.