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‘France in Flames’: The French Riots of 2005

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Abstract

In Autumn 2005, France experienced rioting on an unprecedented scale. For a period of three weeks, young people in the infamous banlieues—run-down estates in the suburbs of major French cities—burned cars, damaged buildings, and clashed with the forces of law and order. Sparked by the deaths of two local youths, electrocuted as they fled from police in the Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, the extent of the violence and destruction was enormous. Some 10,000 cars were set alight over the course of the riots and conservative estimates put the financial cost in the region of 200 million euros. At the height of the disorder, over 11,000 police officers were deployed on a daily basis and over 5000 arrests were made in total. Approximately 800 people were subsequently imprisoned for their actions during the riots. The sociopolitical impact of these events was equally profound; the scale and intensity of the violence led the government to declare a state of emergency, drawing on laws dating from the Algerian War.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a detailed description of the impact of the riots see Laurent Mucchielli, ‘Autumn 2005: A Review of the Most Important Riot in the History of French Contemporary Society’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2009), Vol. 35, No. 5, pp. 731–751.

  2. 2.

    Mark Landler, ‘France Declares State of Emergency to Curb Crisis’, The New York Times, 8 November 2005.

  3. 3.

    French authorities coined the term ‘urban violence’ in the 1990s to describe the episodes of disorder that erupted frequently in the banlieues.

  4. 4.

    ‘Nicolas Sarkozy continue de vilipender “racailles et voyous”’, Le monde, 11 November 2005.

  5. 5.

    Philippe Ridet, ‘M. Sarkozy durcit son discours sur les banlieues’, Le monde, 21 November 2005. Note: all translations are provided by the authors unless otherwise stated.

  6. 6.

    François Dubet, ‘Le retour à l’ordre, et après?’, in Cémentine Autain, Stéphane Beaud et al., Banlieue, lendemains de révolte (Paris: La Dispute, 2006), pp. 57–68.

  7. 7.

    For a comprehensive study of the nature and impact of the security-oriented rhetoric that has pervaded France since the early 2000s, see Laurent Mucchielli, La frénésie sécuritaire: Retour à l’ordre et nouveau contrôle social (Paris: La Découverte, 2008).

  8. 8.

    Stéphane Beaud and Michel Pialoux, ‘La “racaille” et les “vrais jeunes”: critique d’une vision binaire du monde des cités’, in Autain, Beaud et al., Banlieue, lendemains de révolte, p. 19.

  9. 9.

    The Renseignements Généraux was, until 2008, an intelligence division within the police charged, among other things, with providing the government information relating to urban violence. ‘Selon les RG, les émeutes en banlieue n’étaient pas le fait de bandes organisées’, Le Monde, 7 December 2005.

  10. 10.

    Ferdinand Sutterlüty, ‘The hidden morale of the 2005 French riots and 2011 English riots’, Thesis Eleven (2014), Vol. 121, No. 1, pp. 38–56.

  11. 11.

    Jean-Claude Chamboredon and Madeleine Lemaire, ‘Proximité spatiale et distance sociale. Les grands ensembles et leur peuplement’, Revue française de sociologie (1970), No. 11, pp. 3–33.

  12. 12.

    See Graham Murray, ‘France: The riots and the Republic’, Race & Class (2006), Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 26–45; and Marco Oberti, ‘The French republican model of integration: the theory of cohesion and the practice of exclusion’, New Directions for Youth Development (2008), No. 119, pp. 55–73.

  13. 13.

    Doug Ireland, ‘Why is France Burning? The Rebellion of a Lost Generation’, DIRELAND: Politics and Media, 6 November 2005, http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/11/why_is_france_b.html

  14. 14.

    For a comprehensive study of changing perceptions regarding immigrants from the late 1960s onwards, see Maxim Silverman, Deconstructing the Nation. Immigration, Racism and Citizenship in Modern France (London: Routledge, 1992).

  15. 15.

    Paul A. Silverstein and Chantal Tetreault, ‘Postcolonial Urban Apartheid’, Social Science Research Council (SSRC), 11 June 2006, http://riotsfrance.ssrc.org/Silverstein_Tetreault/

  16. 16.

    Silverstein and Tetreault, ‘Postcolonial Urban Apartheid’.

  17. 17.

    Mucchielli, ‘Autumn 2005’, p. 747.

  18. 18.

    Ibid.

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    Sophie Body-Gendrot and Catherine Wihtol de Wended, Sortir des banlieues. Pour en finir avec la tyrannie des territoires (Paris: Editions Autrement, 2007), pp. 60–61.

  21. 21.

    Jacques de Maillard and Sebastian Roché, ‘Crime and Justice in France: Time Trends, Policies and Political Debate’, European Journal of Criminology (2004), Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 112.

  22. 22.

    For a comprehensive study of the significance attached to the theme of insecurity in French society, see Laurent Bonelli, La France a peur: Une histoire sociale de l’insécurité (Paris: La Découverte, 2010).

  23. 23.

    Sophie Body Gendrot, ‘Urban violence in France and England: Comparing Paris (2005) and London (2011)’, Policing and Society (2013), Vol. 23, No. 1, p. 14.

  24. 24.

    Cited in Matthew Moran, The Republic and the Riots: Exploring Urban Violence in French Suburbs, 2005–2007 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2012), p. 214.

  25. 25.

    Ireland, ‘Why is France Burning?; See also Sophie Body-Gendrot, ‘Police marginality, racial logics and discrimination in the banlieues of France’, Ethnic and Racial Studies (2010), Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 656–674.

  26. 26.

    Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, C. (2006) ‘Urban riots in France’, SAIS Review, 26(2): 47–53.

    2006, p. 49.

  27. 27.

    Moran, The Republic and the Riots, pp. 194–195; and Olivier Roy, ‘The nature of the French riots’, Social Science Research Council, 18 November 2005, http://riotsfrance.ssrc.org/Roy/

  28. 28.

    Olivier Roy, ‘The nature of the French riots’, Social Science Research Council (SSRC), 18 November 2005, http://riotsfrance.ssrc.org/Roy/printable.html

  29. 29.

    For a comprehensive overview on this point, see Michel Kokoreff, La force des quartiers. De la délinquance a l’engagement politique (Paris: Payot, 2003) and Luc Bronner, La loi du ghetto. Enquête dans les banlieues françaises (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2010).

  30. 30.

    Eric Marlière, La France nous a lâchés! Le sentiment d’injustice chez les jeunes des cités (Paris: Fayard, 2008).

  31. 31.

    Mucchielli, ‘Autumn 2005’, p. 740.

  32. 32.

    See Michel Kokoreff, Sociologie des émeutes (Paris: Payot, 2008); and Matthew Moran, The Republic and the Riots: Exploring Urban Violence in French Suburbs, 2005–2007 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2012).

  33. 33.

    Susan Ossman and Susan Terrio, ‘The French Riots: Questioning Spaces of Surveillance and Sovereignty’, International Migration (2006), Vol. 44, No. 2, p. 7.

  34. 34.

    Loïc Wacquant, Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity, 2008), pp. 145–162.

  35. 35.

    See Nabil Echchaibi, ‘Republican Betrayal: Beur FM and the Suburban Riots in France’, Journal of Intercultural Studies (2007), Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 301–316; and Karima Laachir, ‘France’s “Ethnic” Minorities and the Question of Exclusion’, Mediterranean Politics (2007), Vol. 12, No. 1, p. 103.

  36. 36.

    Silverstein and Tetreault, ‘Postcolonial Urban Apartheid’.

  37. 37.

    Philippe Marlière, ‘The Rules of the Journalistic Field: Pierre Bourdieu’s Contribution to the Sociology of the Media’, European Journal of Communication (1998), Vol. 13, p. 223.

  38. 38.

    Jean-Paul Besset, ‘A Toulouse, M. Sarkozy remet en cause la police de proximité’, Le Monde, 5 February 2003.

  39. 39.

    Matthew Moran, ‘Sarkozy versus the banlieues: Deconstructing urban legend’, Transitions: Journal of Franco-Iberian Studies (2011), Vol. 7, p. 105.

  40. 40.

    Laurent Mucchielli, ‘Introduction’, in Laurent Mucchielli (ed.), La frénésie sécuritaire. Re tour à l’ordre et nouveau contrôlée social (Paris: La Découverte, 2008), p. 8.

  41. 41.

    Laurent Mucchielli, Violences et insécurité. Fantasmes et réalités dans le débat français (Paris: La Découverte, 2002), p. 7

  42. 42.

    Sophie Body-Gendrot, Sortir des banlieues, p. 61.

  43. 43.

    Mucchielli, Violences et insécurité, p. 7.

  44. 44.

    Silverstein and Tetreault, ‘Postcolonial Urban Apartheid’.

  45. 45.

    Bonelli provides a comprehensive description of police practices in this context. See Laurent Bonelli, ‘Policing the youth: towards a redefinition of discipline and social control in French working-class neighbourhoods’, in S. Venkatesh and R. Kassimir (eds), Youth, Globalization and the Law (Palo Alto, CA.: Stanford University Press, 2007).

  46. 46.

    Ibid.

  47. 47.

    Didier Fassin, Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013), pp. 75–78.

  48. 48.

    Ibid.

  49. 49.

    Moran, The Republic and the Riots, pp. 141–145.

  50. 50.

    See, for example, Renée Zaubermann and René Lévy, ‘Police, Minorities, and the French Republican Ideal’, Criminology (2003), Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 1065–1100.

  51. 51.

    Christian Mouhanna, ‘The French police and urban riots: is the national police force part of the solution or part of the problem?’, in. D. Waddington, F. Jobard and M. King (eds), Rioting in the UK and France: A Comparative Analysis (Cullompton: Willan, 2009), p. 178.

  52. 52.

    Mouhanna, ‘The French police and urban riots’.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., p. 230.

  54. 54.

    Cathy Lisa Schneider, Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New York (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), p. 18.

  55. 55.

    Matthew Moran, ‘Opposing Exclusion: The Political Significance of the Riots in French Suburbs (2005–2007)’, Modern and Contemporary France (2011), Vol. 19, No. 3, p. 305.

  56. 56.

    Ibid.

  57. 57.

    See Sally Marthalar, ‘Nicolas Sarkozy and the politics of French immigration policy’, Journal of European Public Policy (2008), Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 382–397.

  58. 58.

    See Sophie Body-Gendrot, ‘Urban violence in France and England: comparing Paris (2005) and London (2011)’, Policing and Society (2013), Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 6–25; Fabian Jobard, ‘The French urban unrests: data-based interpretations’, Sociology Compass (2008), Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 1287–1302; and Laurent Mucchielli, ‘Les Émuetes de Novembre 2005: les raisons de le colere’, in L. Mucchielli and V. Le Goaziou (eds), Quand les banlieues brûlent: Retour sur les émeutes de novembre 2005 (Paris: La Decouverte, 2006), pp. 5–30.

  59. 59.

    ‘Sarkozy avait promis de “nettoyer les 4000 au Kärcher”’, Le Parisien, 19 June 2010.

  60. 60.

    Julio Godoy, ‘France: Riots Spread into Rebellion’, Inter Press Service, 6 November 2005.

  61. 61.

    Paul Quinio, ‘“Nettoyage au Kärcher”: Sarkozy persiste’, Libération, 23 June 2005.

  62. 62.

    John P. Murphy, ‘Baguettes, Berets and Burning Cars: The 2005 Riots and the Question of Race in Contemporary France’, French Cultural Studies (2011), Vol. 22, No. 1, p. 38.

  63. 63.

    Moran, The Republic and the Riots, p. 13.

  64. 64.

    Examples here include ‘Suburbs are ablaze with anger’, The Times, 3 November 2005; ‘The man whose fate rests on a solution to the revolt’, The Times, 7 November 2005; and ‘Policiers—jeunes. Le cercle infernal’, Le Monde, 17 October 2006.

  65. 65.

    Stéphane Beaud and Michel Pialoux, Violences urbaines, violence sociale. Genèse des nouvelles classes dangereuses (Paris: Fayard, 2003), p. 410.

  66. 66.

    Moran, The Republic and the Riots, p. 10.

  67. 67.

    B.E. Brown, ‘God and man in the French riots’, American Foreign Policy Interests (2007), Vol. 29, pp. 183–199.

  68. 68.

    Didier Fassin, ‘Riots in France and silent anthropologists’, Anthropology Today (2006), Vol. 22, No. 1, p. 1.

  69. 69.

    Sebastian Roché and Jacques de Maillard, ‘Crisis in policing: the French rioting of 2005’, Policing (2009), Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 36.

  70. 70.

    Fabian Jobard, ‘The French Urban Unrests: Data-based Interpretations’, Sociology Compass (2008), Vol. 2, No. 4, p. 1290.

  71. 71.

    Jon Henley, “‘We hate France and the French hate us’”, The Guardian, 9 November 2005.

  72. 72.

    Alex Duvall Smith, ‘The week Paris burned’, The Observer, 6 November 2005.

  73. 73.

    Cited in Moran, The Republic and the Riots, p. 238.

  74. 74.

    Jon Henley, “‘We hate France and the French hate us’”, The Guardian, 9 November 2005.

  75. 75.

    Sadiya Akram, ‘Recognizing the 2011 United Kingdom riots as political protest: a theoretical framework based on Agency, Habitus and Preconscious’, British Journal of Criminology (2014), Vol. 54, No. 3, p. 384.

  76. 76.

    Mucchielli, ‘Autumn 2005’, p. 742.

  77. 77.

    Moran, The Republic and the Riots, p. 262.

  78. 78.

    Roché and de Maillard, ‘Crisis in policing’, pp. 37–39.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. King’s College London, London, UK

    Matthew Moran

  2. Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK

    David Waddington

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Moran, M., Waddington, D. (2016). ‘France in Flames’: The French Riots of 2005. In: Riots. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57131-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57131-1_3

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