RIGHTS-FRANCE: New Rescue Plan May Save Few

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

PARIS, Feb 11 2008 (IPS) - The French government’s new plan for reconstruction of the poorest neighbourhoods has sparked criticism, both within the government and among the opposition.

The government plans to spend a billion euros (1.4 billion dollars) on improving education and vocational training for youths, and on fighting discrimination, deputy minister for urban development Fadela Amara had announced last month. The suburbs have seen violent protests over recent years.

The new plan called Espoir Banlieue (Hope for the Suburbs) will create 45,000 jobs in these suburbs over the next three years, Amara said, and provide state support to 20,000 businesses.

Amara said she would also ask President Nicholas Sarkozy “to launch ambitious and innovative child care programmes to allow mothers to go to work.” This has been a strong demand in the suburbs.

The government’s plan is “vague and confusing”, the daily Le Monde said in an editorial comment. The paper said that the day Amara was outlining the government plan (Jan. 23), Sarkozy held a press conference in another impoverished neighbourhood and spoke of strengthening police forces in the troubled suburbs.

The French suburbs, particularly those around Paris, are populated mostly by immigrants and others of immigrant origin. They are mired in poverty, and there is high unemployment among youth, who are handicapped by racism and poor education.

The suburbs have become a den of petty criminality. Anger with state institutions, particularly the police, runs high. In the fall of 2005, the death of two immigrant boys following police action sparked violent riots, leading to many deaths and to destruction of cars, school buildings and stores.

Sarkozy, then interior minister, called the inhabitants of these suburbs “scum”, and said he would “clean (the neighbourhoods) with a Kaercher” (an industrial cleaning machine).

Now, Sarkozy’s “plan antiglandouille” (“anti-idleness plan) has failed to convince many – including government ministers. “I do not believe in plans for the suburbs,” said minister for urban development and social housing Christine Boutin.

“This is the umpteenth time the government has promised a Marshall Plan for the suburbs,” said Francois Bayrou, former presidential candidate from the centrist Democratic Movement party. “The suburbs’ inhabitants, their elected representatives, and ordinary people do not believe in them any more.” The Marshall Plan was the U.S.-backed plan for reconstruction of Europe after World War II.

A city reconstruction plan must be a long-term, all-encompassing development strategy, according to Prof. Said Yahiaoui from the Institute of Political Science in Paris.

Vaulx-en-Vein village where Amara announced the plan has seen numerous and costly attempts to rescue it from decay. “The bureaucracies needed a long time to realise that to reconstruct a city you need to act massively on all aspects of urban life at the same time,” said Yahiaoui, a former official at the village.

In October 1990, he said, a new shopping mall was opened in the heart of the village. A couple of days after its inauguration, a youth of immigrant origin was killed in an accident involving a police patrol. A violent rebellion followed.

“We realised that social bonds did not exist in the village, despite all the reconstruction schemes,” Yahiaoui told IPS. “The city administration, the church, the unions, the politicians, everybody who watched the city’s collapse, realised that the city continued to exist physically, but it actually had disappeared.”

Following the rebellion of 1990, the government of then president Francois Mitterrand launched a new programme to provide jobs, and to create schools, health centres and a new mass transport system.

“We did finally have a comprehensive programme,” village mayor Maurice Charrier told IPS. “We practically constructed the city from scratch. To do that, we went to look for help everywhere, starting from below, empowering the people, encouraging alliances across society, practically recreating the social fabric.”

Urban developers believe such a plan is needed again – with new measures thrown in.

“The state should have given French nationality to all immigrants living in places like Vaulx-en-Vein,” Paris-based architect Roland Castro said in a debate held in the village. “Such a measure would have meant a forceful, civilising encouragement to make everybody participate in such an urban revolution.”

The new plan stops short of fundamental, far-reaching changes, its critics say.