France's future


It will be long and hard, but France can come through this
David Ignatius has a different take on the riots in France.

The sin of slavery will never be fully redeemed, but America today is a far different place than where I grew up. African Americans now play prominent and powerful roles in every area of American life -- as chief executives of huge companies, on television and in the movies, in top positions in government and politics. Like a recovering addict, we're still solving the issue of race one day at a time, but we've come a long way.

France has scarcely begun that journey. But the events of the past two weeks suggest that the day of reckoning Baldwin foresaw may finally have arrived. Over the past two weeks, more than 5,000 cars have been set ablaze. More than 70 police and 30 firefighters have been injured in the violence. The angry kids haven't been intimidated by hard-line Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who said he wanted to cleanse the "scum" in the suburbs with a water gun. And they haven't been soothed, either, by the calls for reconciliation by French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. In fact, the catfight between these two rival politicians has made the crisis worse -- devaluing both carrots and sticks.

America's lesson for the French is that they have a long, hard road ahead. The starting point is to break the French state of denial. The average (white) French person believes fiercely in the country's revolutionary traditions of liberty, equality and fraternity -- to the point of pretending that these virtues exist for everyone when they clearly don't. France's prized educational meritocracy -- a gulag of tests and exams that prepare the way for the best and brightest to enter elite national schools -- is in fact gamed by the existing elite. They know which lyces are the fastest entry ramp for their kids, which test-prep programs will produce the best results on the feared baccalaureate exams. Right now, France has what amounts to a reverse affirmation action -- a system of supposed equality that guarantees unequal results.

I don't agree entirely, but it is something to think about. And there is no doubt that part of the problem comes from the high unemployment among minority youth in France.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Wed - November 9, 2005 at 07:37 AM  Tag


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