Police brutality lays bare racism in France

THE recent riots across France, sparked off by the brutal and, prima facie, completely unjustified killing of a 17-year-old boy, Nahel Merzouk, in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on June 27, underline the failure of the country’s efforts to ensure sustained social cohesion. Merzouk was of Algerian-Moroccan descent and the French police have long been accused of discrimination against non-White French citizens. Certainly, the Merzouk case once again demonstrates that the accusation is not unjustified. But the police’s approach is only a facet of the deeper malaise of racism which continues to persist in France.

Advertisement

The French pride themselves on being the bastion of liberty and equality since the Revolution of 1789. There is no doubt that the French Revolution was of seminal significance in global evolution because it blew a hole in the belief that a hierarchical social order, along with political monarchical absolutism, was divinely ordained. At the same time, the notions of liberty and equality, enshrined in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen which was one the founding documents of the Revolution were, despite being couched in universalist terms, essentially limited to the Caucasian races. Were that not so, the Caucasian races would not have believed that colonialism was the White Man’s Burden and not the exploitative system that it was.

It is important to trace the roots of racism in Europe in general and France in particular because despite decolonisation after World War II and the evocative prose of the basic documents of the United Nations, it continues to persist in large sections of European, including French, society. This is evident from a collection of over $1 million on a crowdfunding site for the police officer who killed Merzouk. Admittedly, the collection has been started by an extreme right-wing element and has been condemned by left-leaning and centrist politicians; but the French government has done nothing to stop this collection. Surely, freedom of expression cannot be allowed to cover such a provocative action. Media reports indicate that Merzouk’s grandmother, when asked for her reaction to the crowdfunding, said, “My heart aches.” For Indians, the insensitive crowdfunding can only conjure up the memory of the fund collection by some British imperialists for the butcher of Jallianwala Bagh, General Reginald Dyer.

While around 85 per cent of the French population is White, some 10 per cent are of North African descent and come from France’s erstwhile colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. This minority is Muslim and its socio-economic status is low. While France pursues secularism and goes to the extent of not permitting any overtly religious symbol in public institutions, it continues, at its core, to be a Catholic Christian country. The forces of the religious Right have gained strength during the past decades and have posed a significant challenge to those who advocate a more equitable society. Over the almost two decades that have passed since the last major riots in 2005, which were also the result of a confrontation between the police and some youth of North African descent, the socio-economic status of this community has not improved to any appreciable extent. This has continued to breed frustration, which burst forth after Merzouk’s killing.

The North African French community is not a theological monolith, even if most of its members nurse grievances over being at the tail end of the socio-economic spectrum. Many of the young do not see a future and are therefore susceptible to extremist Islamist theologies. The capture of territory by the Islamic State in Syria/Iraq in 2014 attracted some French minority youth, as it did from other European countries. While the exact number of those who left to join ISIS is not publicly known, the French government has been reluctant to allow those who want to return. The lure of ISIS since the territorial rollback of the Islamic State has reduced, but this cannot allow the French authorities to not seriously work for integrative social processes which will show the minority youth that it has a future outside the ghettos.

Interestingly, the French riots led to lauding of strong governmental efforts, especially in Uttar Pradesh, to curb, if not eliminate, extremism of the kind which had led to violence in France. Violence, arson and looting over the killing of Merzouk cannot be justified in any way. But the direction and meaning of the praise for the state government and denunciation of the extremism being witnessed in France were clear. And, if any doubt remained, a tweet of UP’s Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya removed it, if somewhat indirectly.

The rioters committed arson against the Alcazar library in Marseilles and some others as well. The extent of damage to the Alcazar library is unclear as yet but all arson attacks against libraries were unpardonable. Instead of denouncing these acts, Maurya tweeted: “The burning of the 850-year-old library by rioters reminded one of India’s oldest libraries, Nalanda, which was destroyed by Turk ruler Bakhtiyar Khilji. It continued to burn for three months.” It is not clear which library Maurya was referring to because there are no reports of any ancient library being targeted, though, of course, Alcazar opened as a library in 2004 may have contained old and valuable manuscripts.

It is noteworthy that the need for strong administrative measures to curb extremism has, as yet, not been emphasised by anyone in India when riots break out in the US as a reaction to police brutality against the country’s Black citizens. These riots are also caused by allegations of persistent police discrimination against the Black community in parts of the US. Like in France, racism has not disappeared in the US. Will some Indian public figures now tell the US administration and other public authorities that they need to use strong measures to control elements in the US who protest against police brutality?

Of course, the US rioters, even if they are Black, are Christians.