A Frenchman now living in the USA, I find this dishonest article placates a US leftist grid of analysis and ignores the root causes of the recent explosion of violence in France.

To put things in perspective it is important to understand why the situation in France is very different from the American one. Black Americans visiting France since the early XXth century were amazed that they could sit at a café and be waited by a French waiter without creating a commotion. In contrast, black French citizens, members of the post-World War II French government , who later became rulers of former French African colonies, had to comply with strict US segregationist rules when they visited America.

During the sixties, when America experienced race riots, France certainly had its share of political upheaval, but none had anything to do with race. Fifty years ago race was a non-issue in France. Out of the complex Algerian crisis, migratory tensions in France were focused on the inhuman fate of millions of « Pieds-Noirs », French residents summarily expelled from Algeria, forced to resettle with no support from their government. Despite this, in less than ten years they were able to successfully reintegrate the country of their ancestors.

France’s immigrants until the 1970ies had been primarily Europeans who either assimilated with no major difficulties or moved back to their countries of origin.. There were very few non-European immigrants in France back then except for mostly Algerian guest workers who were let in with the understanding that they would go back to their country of origin and were not allowed to settle with their families.

The paradigm changed in the 1980ies when the socialo-communist coalition led by François Mitterrand, opened the flood-gates of uncontrolled immigration in the backdrop of consistent opposition by the French people. Using the judiciary branch they ruthlessly nixed every attempt to control immigration. When Centre-right parties were back in power, they tried to control the most egregious forms of laxist immigration but the power of the judges supported by the elitist media spheres undermined their tepid actions. Laws made it through the legislative process either were blocked by judicial authorities in the name of « human rights » or were not enforced by a legal system in the hands of mostly leftist militant activists.
A myriad of politically motivated associations were set up, funneling government subsidies from complicit layers of the bureaucracy and international organizations that in many cases cooperate actively with human traffickers to save migrants from drowning in the open sea. This encourages a steady flow of mostly male immigrants determined to use every possibility to take advantage of generous social benefits and to provide cheap labor to a sub economy that includes drug dealers and other criminal organizations in need of foot soldiers. Laws set up to help political refugees such as Solzhenitsyn are completely diverted from their purpose. It is not uncommon for so called political refugees to visit their countries of origin as soon as they have managed to gain a foothold in France.
Sadly many well-meaning compassionate people including some of the highest levels of the Catholic Church hierarchy have confused compassion for laxism thus becoming the useful fools of an uncontrolled immigration process that is only two generations away from turning France and many other European countries into African colonies.

The notion that France has abandoned these immigrants letting them rot in the suburbs is a fallacy. France, the country with highest taxes in the world is sinking in debt after funneling billions of Francs now Euros into plans to redevelop the suburbs abandoned by legacy French inhabitants replaced by non-European immigrants, many from the underclass of their countries of origin with no intention to assimilate. These areas have become enclaves of unfettered violence inflicted by semi-illiterate individuals manipulated by drug dealers and Islamists of various flavors. They believe they are above the law and don’t respond to police’s action rendered ineffective by a judicial bureaucracy that would amaze even Kafka. At the same time, more traditional rural areas of France are completely abandoned by the authorities triggering the recent “Gilets Jaunes” (yellow Jacket) movements.
France with close to 70 million inhabitants has allowed 20 million people of non european origin to settle. Most are French citizens, with a high proportion with dual citizenship, having kept the nationality of their ancestors which they value far more than their French nationality, a pure administrative convenience allowing access to generous benefits. They respond to the admonitions of the islamist goverments of Turkey and Algeria who openly encourage them to see themselves as the vanguard of an ethnic invasion but despise anything related to their country of residence.

Benefits once allowed France to keep a vibrant demography, empowering middle-class families promoting healthy life-styles, common sense values and respect of law and order. The French school system by many measures second to none adhered to rigorous meritocracy that helped promote many from the lowest classes to the summit of French society. Even those who did not make it to the top were literate and able to find a place in society. This system has been destroyed by calamitous reforms defined and implemented by leftist nihilistic ideologues with the complicity of a hedonist society led by narcistic influencers determined to protect their privileges by undermining common-sense middle class values leading society to embrace every woke fad.

The article rightly identifies the death of a seventeen year old non European French citizen as the trigger for the recent riots. However trying to present him as the innocent victim of police brutality and racism is abjectly dishonest. The death of any human and even more of a seventeen year old is always a tragedy. The reality is that Nahel was a dangerous criminal perpetrator of more than 10 very serious crimes even if he can have no record because an axiom of the legal system is that minors can not have a criminal record. In any ordered society when a criminal resist arrest, the priority of the police is to neutralize such a criminal with the most immediate means available to them. Those that allowed Nahel to accumulate crimes without punishing him at his first offense, his delinquent parents are the ones who have Nahel’s blood on their hands.

There is an interesting comment on the riots in Unherd: “the more that violence consumes the French streets, the closer the far-Right comes to power.” https://unherd.com/2023/07/as-france-burns-the-far-right-rises/ Worth reading.