"Paris is burning again." Being associated with this headline has become somewhat of a fate for Paris in recent times. The protests that have been happening regularly are now showcasing images of a burning Paris to the world. Protests that started in the suburbs of France almost five years ago and then spread throughout the country in waves occasionally resurface.
The form, causes, social dynamics, and political consequences of these protests have been extensively analyzed. Even among the movements categorized as "new social movements," these protests had quite unique characteristics. People from all segments, ranging from far-right to far-left, joined the movement, which initially began as a protest against fuel price hikes. The movement of the "yellow vests," which garnered the support of 72% of the population according to polls, turned into a full-fledged popular uprising. However, in the same polls, 85% of the population stated their opposition to acts of violence. In other words, the French people appreciate protests but do not necessarily desire violence.
Nevertheless, it seems inevitable for protests to turn into violence. Perhaps the visible violence is attributed by the public not to themselves but to the police. However, it appears that the anger directed towards police violence is expressed by protesters in senseless and unplanned vandalism. The movement lacked leadership and a political vision beyond the ultimate goal of "forcing Macron to resign," becoming almost an inseparable part of Macron's administration, continuing to flare on and off.
France is a country of protests. Protests have become a form of participation in governance for the people, but it is a destructive and angry form of participation. In any case, it is an indication of a significant disconnect between the state and the people.
The current protests began following the killing of a 17-year-old citizen named Nahel M., of Algerian origin, who was shot and killed by the police in the suburb of Nanterre in Paris for allegedly not obeying a stop order. The incidents quickly spread beyond the capital, reaching Bordeaux, Lyon, Lille, and Marseille, and even extending to Brussels.
In France, where xenophobia and French racism have reached extreme levels, these angry protests by North Africans are being compared to the outburst of anger demonstrated in a similar case in 2005. There is growing dissatisfaction with the behavior of the police towards Arab individuals of Maghrebi origin. The constant stopping of people and questioning of their identities at arbitrary times and preconceived suspicions of guilt are increasingly leading to feelings of exclusion and racist humiliation among Maghrebis. Such a death incident can act as a spark to ignite the growing anger.
The mistreatment that France has subjected Africans to for years, including all kinds of oppression, suppression, and torture while exploiting them, leads to a significant accumulation of resentment. Furthermore, the failure to fully embrace and integrate the people who have been living on this land for several generations and have been exposed to the French language and culture as much as possible is at stake. On the contrary, the racist vein that hinders integration and continues to nourish itself every passing day frequently exacerbates the situation to this extent.
This situation is actually a serious problem that the whole of Europe needs to deal with. Venturing into realms without confronting its historical background, European democracy eventually faces its own reality. Within this reality lies the burden of centuries of colonialism. It involves constantly testing the claims of enlightenment, democracy, human rights, and freedom and challenging them to their limits.
The trajectory that democracy experience has led France to a place where racist discourse takes prominence, and the far-right exerts a discursive pressure on mainstream politics at best. Although the leader of the far-right racist party, Marine Le Pen, may not win in elections, she forces Macron to pay a significant price for his own discourse. This is not a negligible handicap.
There is no politician left who can explain that the process that makes France a nation in elections, even if it is a lie, is related to enlightenment, democracy, and respect for universal human rights rather than the French race. Racism has established its hegemony and suppressed alternative discourses. However, this hegemony is largely an expression of weakness in confronting racism, not the power of racist discourse. In fact, what enabled Macron to win against racist Le Pen was not the concessions he made to racist discourse but rather his diminished references to universal values. On the contrary, it is likely that Macron's hesitation to take a bolder stance against racism and his doubts about universal values hindered him from achieving a more decisive victory. The masses are not as blindly racist or xenophobic as they are believed to be.
Now, although the anger exhibited by North Africans against exclusion and police violence has a different motivation from the ongoing protests that have received support from the majority of the population, it does not pit one segment of society against another. If the arguments of racists were true, what we would see in France right now would not be a clash between protesters and the police or the state but rather a civil war between different segments of the population.
We hope that things do not reach that point, but until racism is not seen as the problem of the majority but rather the intolerance of a minority, and until the main culprits who invest in and incite it, the opportunistic politicians, are countered by a politics that boldly references universal values, Paris will continue to burn.
