Banlieue, lendemains de révolte - Book review

Résumé du document

I have chosen to review a book called 'Banlieue, lendemains de révolte, a collective work', published in 2006, when the riots was still a burning issue. Authors aim to analyze and understand these riots which took place in the French suburbs in November 2005. What are the main factors of the riots? How do we interpret them? Is there a political significance behind these violent riots? How do the French social, economic and political contexts matter? How does it challenge the French republican model? Had such riots happened in the past? How did political parties answer? Here are the main questions that are raised in the book. It is also important to underline that it is an engaging book which defends a very liberal point of view. Moreover, I found it very interesting that this book was written by a group of 14 authors who have totally different jobs of, a sociologist, an anthropologist, a deputy, an architect, a president of an association, a philosopher, an examining magistrate.

Extraits

[...] Alec Hargreaves[4], a French journalist, whom ideas are similar with Banlieue, lendemains de révolte' s authors, insists on the fact that we have to be careful not to mix up absence of words and absence of message: even though young suburban people didn't use any slogan as Mai 68 demonstrators did, it doesn't mean that they had no message to convey. On the contrary, their main complaints were clear: social inequalities, unemployment, racism and exclusion. However, politicians didn't seem to heard, listen and understand the message. [...]

[...] Moreover, he remains that it would be necessary to measure discrimination by using ethnic statistics. But the French government rejects the idea, in the name of citizen's equality. However, as David Goldberg[5] wrote, there is no perfect solution: “we're damned if we do and damned if we don't”. The situation is generally seen as more serious from abroad. Thus, US media tend to stigmatise the failure of the French integration model, using smash expressions. For instance, the conservative American channel Fox News says: “Paris is burning”, while CNN mentions the risk of a civil war in France[6]. [...]

[...] But other articles are much more balanced and nuanced such as SSRC's publications[9]. In a number of articles published on a website dedicated to the riots, social scientists try to understand the causes and the consequences of these riots for the French society: underlying issues were far more complex, involving social and economic exclusion, racial discrimination, and most importantly the capacity of the French Republic to respond to these challenges while maintaining its distinctive model”[10]. [...]

[...] Clémentine Autain : "Banlieue, lendemains de révolte" (2006) I have chosen to review a book called Banlieue, lendemains de révolte, a collective work, published in 2006, when the riots were still a burning issue. Authors aim to analyse and understand these riots which took place in the French suburbs in November 2005. What are the main factors of the riots? How do we have to interpret them? Is there a political significance behind these violent riots? How do French social, economic and political contexts matter? How does it challenge the French republican model? Did such riots already happen in the past? How did political parties answer? [...]

[...] It is now time for analysing and evaluating the book. The fact that it is a collective book is twofold. On the one hand, it is a chance for reading the story from several different points of view; on the other hand, it sometimes lacks of unity and connections. It would have been interesting that authors answer to the same focused question, so that we could have compared more easily their thesis. Moreover, this book is not neutral, since authors share a liberal point of view on the riots. [...]