A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #365 - History - October-November 2005: The Revolt of Working-Class Neighborhoods (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In 2005, 400 working-class neighborhoods across France erupted in 
protests for three weeks, becoming a political issue in its own right. 
Seventeen years later, new revolts erupted following Nahel's death, in a 
context where both the struggles and their repression have intensified. 
Caught between internal contradictions within the working class, the 
left, and immigrant movements, this article revisits the difficult 
strategies for building a mass movement. The youth described as "of 
immigrant origin" and from working-class neighborhoods have experienced 
numerous political awakenings, bringing a new generation of activists to 
the forefront. The first was the 1983 March for Equality, which followed 
the first so-called urban revolts, the "Minguettes rodeos" of 1981. 
Co-opted by SOS Racisme and municipal patronage, new waves of revolts 
took place between 1990 and 2005. Numerous mobilizations of populations 
with colonial origins occurred (on colonial memory, against double 
punishment, for Palestine, intellectual and artistic productions, etc.). 
Politically, autonomous organizations emerged, such as the Immigration 
and Suburbs Movement (MIB), which raised the question of the colonial 
continuum, a theme taken up again in 2005 by the Indigenous of the 
Republic movement. This latter movement was itself a response to the 
ideological reactions that accompanied these upheavals in the symbolic 
colonial order: the 2004 law on headscarves, which deeply divided the 
left, and the law on the "positive role" of colonization.

The course of the revolts and their political consequences
The security reaction, however, began in 2002 with Nicolas Sarkozy's 
first appointment to the Ministry of the Interior, who established " 
zero tolerance  ".

Reappointed Minister of the Interior in 2005 and motivated by his 
presidential ambitions, several of his contemptuous public remarks 
heightened tensions, such as his suggestion to "clean up" the Cité des 
4000 housing project with a pressure washer in July 2005[1]. His visit 
to the Argenteuil housing project, where he was booed by residents and 
declared , "  You're fed up with this gang of thugs, we're going to get 
rid of them  ," took place the day before the deaths of Zyed and Bouna 
in Clichy-sous-Bois. Electrocuted in an EDF transformer while trying to 
flee the police, Sarkozy accused them of burglary at a construction site.

Images from October 2006 of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré in Clichy-Sous-Bois
Three days of rioting ensued, followed by a peaceful march that seemed 
to calm things down. But everything was reignited by a police grenade 
thrown into a mosque during prayer, reigniting the unrest and causing 
the revolts to spread to neighboring districts, from Montfermeil and 
Chelles in the Seine-et-Marne department (77), and in the following days 
to the entire Seine-Saint-Denis department (93). The following week, the 
entire Île-de-France region was ablaze, and then the riots spread 
throughout France, expressing the recognition of a shared condition. 
Among the targets, in addition to the police and state or municipal 
institutions, were businesses and schools, places that crystallized 
humiliation and rejection. Alongside the riots, a voice was forged 
through a flurry of community meetings and public statements by young 
people and residents, often through the media, which only showed up when 
things were at their worst. They exposed the problems of their 
relationship with the police, the burden of discrimination, the feeling 
of not being considered French (several young people showed their 
identity cards on television), and more generally, the social conditions 
of life and poverty in the neighborhood. But in order to circumvent the 
social explanations for the revolt, culturalist explanations abounded, 
placing the blame on families, rap music, Islamists, drug dealers, 
and... polygamy! De Villepin, then Prime Minister, declared a state of 
emergency on November 7th, a colonial measure dating back to the 
Algerian War. Until this announcement, the entire left wing and the 
unions remained silent.

15 years of political transformation on the left
The revolt occurred between the large high school mobilization against 
the Fillon law, and the opposition movement to what would be Dominique 
De Villepin's response to the revolt, the first employment contract 
(CPE) and the equal opportunities law.

Collective work, Universities under pressure. Reflections on the 
mobilization against the law for equal opportunities and the CPE , 
Syllepse, 2011, 190 pages, 10 euros.
The anti-CPE movement revealed divisions among young people and the 
difficult convergence of various protests, divisions exploited by the 
State[2], and led to discriminatory practices by the security services 
(SO) of major student organizations like the UNEF, reflecting the 
exclusion of young people from the housing projects, who were lumped 
together and associated with violent gangs[3]. From this overall phase 
of youth revolt, however, a new generation of activists emerged in the 
following years, drawn from both groups and committed to overcoming 
these divisions by addressing the issue of colonial racism. Numerous 
movements and themes would shake up the left for 15 years (mobilizations 
against Islamophobia, against police violence with the Adama Committee, 
and the use of social media to discuss racist, sexist, and historical 
issues, etc.). Through attempts to forge alliances with the Yellow Vests 
and the mobilization for George Floyd, the issue of police violence will 
become unavoidable, even if, in parallel, a segment of the left joins 
demonstrations in support of the police, in a movement contrary to 
reactionary sentiment. Indeed, since the Sarkozy years and the process 
of fascization he initiated, the criminalization of residents of 
working-class neighborhoods has been a relentless campaign, from Zemmour 
to the Republican Spring. A large part of the left, susceptible to this 
rhetoric, will not mobilize in 2021 against the Separatism Law.

The revolts for Nahel in 2023
The death of Nahel, which sparked another wave of youth protests across 
the country, brought working-class neighborhoods back into the spotlight 
as a political issue. The fruits of the political battles waged in 
previous years became evident when La France Insoumise (LFI) and the CGT 
(General Confederation of Labour) publicly supported the uprising, 
calling not for calm, but for justice. Unlike in 2005, the rebellious 
youth did not find themselves completely isolated politically[4]. The 
issue of police violence could no longer be ignored, and mobilizations 
took place in Nanterre, then throughout France in the following weeks. A 
day of action was called by numerous social movement organizations on 
September 23, bringing together 30,000 people nationwide, with, for the 
first time, a broad platform of demands[5]and the convergence of many 
movements, associations, and unions. But after a day of mobilization, 
nothing happens afterward, no will to make this framework permanent... 
Why is it so complicated to build a movement in working-class 
neighborhoods whose demands should, however, unite them?[6]

The evolution of La France Insoumise (LFI), whether on police violence, 
Islamophobia, or Palestine, is the result of this decade of political 
struggle led by the 2005-2006 generation, a genuine achievement in the 
balance of power. The strategies of immigrant movements, while all 
claiming autonomy, diverge: the weight of repression and reactionary 
pressure leads several activists and movements to align themselves with 
LFI for a time, while others seek elected representatives from their 
neighborhoods in various elections to guarantee autonomy and avoid 
simply being vote-getters. But these strategies risk relegating 
grassroots mobilizations to the background, with the risk of reverting 
to clientelistic relationships. It's important to remember that without 
mobilization and a balance of power on the ground, many demands will 
never see the light of day, elected representatives or not.

Class contradictions
The political subject of working-class neighborhoods can be defined as 
follows: it is that of the unprotected, precarious, impoverished, and 
culturally marginalized stratum of the proletariat, predominantly 
racialized and divided by its racial status. Simultaneously subjected to 
all forms of domination and exploitation, and various obstacles to 
accessing rights (housing, healthcare), the destruction of public 
services, and 30 years of neoliberal restructuring that have closed 
numerous factories and destroyed the associated worker solidarity, the 
inhabitants of these neighborhoods are turning to other forms of 
solidarity or economic activity (religious or community-based, drug 
dealing, etc.). As a result, they are subjected to stigmatization, 
systemic police violence (the war on drugs and terrorism, the 
persecution of migrants, etc.), and incarceration, as they are 
designated as internal enemies . These populations, sometimes sensitive 
to international issues like Palestine, are subjected to demands for 
national loyalty and integration, while simultaneously facing 
discrimination . Such a level of material and ideological contradictions 
can only lead to revolts. But whether it was the MIB (Movement for the 
Liberation of Burkina Faso) 20 years ago or the United Front of 
Immigration and Working-Class Neighborhoods (FUIQP), created in 2011 in 
Créteil, both of which have attempted in recent years to organize these 
populations, no movement has managed to rise up on a mass scale.

Between the two revolts, the strikes of undocumented immigrants, the 
mobilizations of Uber drivers, chambermaids, railway workers, and 
garbage collectors during their retirement, and their visibility in 
essential sectors of the economy during Covid, also reminded us that the 
residents of these neighborhoods are workers, when attempts were made to 
stigmatize them as "  lumpenproletariat  ," "  thugs  ," and " 
profiteers  "! But their problems go beyond the workplace, which demands 
a union awakening. If we want to break down the divisions built up 
within the workforce, between the working class and the middle class, 
compounded by the racial divide, we must first acknowledge the effects 
of these divisions: the interests of protected employees and managers , 
small business owners, sometimes overrepresented in union leadership or 
organizational positions, whose interests, daily experiences, and 
histories diverge significantly from those of workers in working-class 
neighborhoods, where many are precarious, unemployed, temporary workers, 
gig workers, or discriminated against , or in professional sectors where 
unionism has little or no presence. Campaigns like " At work and 
everywhere else, let's destroy the racist system ," led by the 
Solidaires trade union, are a step in the right direction; we need to go 
further.

A whole front to rebuild
As we can see, over the past 40 years, the so-called urban revolts, 
culminating in 2005, have been concurrent with political structures and 
a historical relationship with the rest of the social movement and the 
left. The ease of electoral strategies is also a consequence of the 
difficulty for neighborhood activists to unite in order to build a 
grassroots movement and find means of exerting pressure that are not 
criminalized. The goal would be to rebuild a unified and intersectional 
social front of demands, like the one that began for the demonstration 
of September 23, 2023, with one foot in the workplace and the other in 
working-class neighborhoods. Without fetishizing a pseudo-" 
revolutionary rioter  ," as is sometimes seen, revolutionaries must 
foster the creation of spaces for convergence and lasting 
counter-powers, encouraging the mass mobilization of residents' anger in 
ways other than riotous episodes that primarily involve very young 
people. Revolutionaries must help to win their overall demands and stop 
them being perceived with suspicion and as non-central by the left and 
the trade unions, otherwise no retreat of fascism and no social 
transformation will be possible.

Nicolas Pasadena (UCL Anti-racism commission)

CHRONOLOGY
1981 "  Minguettes rodeos  " in Vénissieux, then in the rest of the Lyon 
suburbs.

AUTUMN 1983 Marches for equality and against racism, political birth of 
the youth "  from immigration  ", followed a year later by " Convergence 
84  ": creation of SOS Racisme, the Marches will be ethnicized and 
renamed "  marches of the beurs  ".

1990-1991 new riots in Vaulx-en-Velin following the death of Thomas 
Claudio, then in Manthes-la-Jolie following the death of Aissa Ihich and 
Youssef Khaif, the police officers are only given suspended sentences.

1994-1995: Riots erupted in the 18th arrondissement of Paris following 
the death of Makomé Mbowolé in a police station, who was killed at 
point-blank range. These events inspired Mathieu Kassovitz's film La 
Haine, provoking the ire of police unions. The Immigration and Suburbs 
Movement (MIB) was created.

1997 AND 2002 revolts in Dammarie-les-Lys (77) following the death of 
Abdelkader Bouziane (1997) and Mohammed Berrichi (2002), creation of the 
association Bouge qui bouge, which will lead a long struggle for truth 
and justice and will suffer local political harassment.

May 11, 1998: Chevènement anti-immigration law.

2002-2004 "  Justice in the suburbs  " campaign initiated by the MIB.

SPRING 2005 movement against the Fillon law, appeal from the Indigènes 
de la République, massively signed.

From October 27 to November 15, 2005, riots in working-class 
neighborhoods, affecting 400 neighborhoods, led to the proclamation of a 
state of emergency on November 7.

SPRING 2006 anti-CPE movement and against the Equal Opportunities law.

2007-2017 numerous revolts: Villiers-le-Bel following the death of 
Mushim and Lakhamy (2007), in Grenoble following the death of Karim 
Boudouda (2011), in Beaumont-sur-Oise following the death of Adama 
Traoré (2016), in Aulnay following the police assault of Théo Luaka 
(2017) and revolt in Bobigny during a support rally on February 11.

2018 Yellow Vest movement, awareness that police violence accepted in 
working-class neighborhoods is extending to the rest of the population.

2018 death of Nahel Merzouk, followed by 11 days of riots in 
working-class neighborhoods across France.

To validate

[1]It should also be noted that, during the fire on Boulevard Vincent 
Auriol on the night of August 25-26, 2005, which killed 17 people, he 
had asked whether the foreign residents of the building were in a 
regular situation...

[2]Both to justify the CPE as the lesser evil for young people from the 
neighborhoods in opposition to a youth that would be privileged, and 
then following the violence at the end of the demonstration at Les 
Invalides on March 24, opposition between a white youth demonstrating in 
a good-natured way and " thugs " who would be " anti-white racists "...

[3]Collective, University under Tensions , Syllepses, 2011.

[4]" Urban revolts, working-class neighborhoods in the spotlight ", 
Alternative libertaire no. 341, September 2023.

[5]" Call for the unified march of September 23: For the end of systemic 
racism, police violence, for social justice and public freedoms ", joint 
communiqué of September 23, 2023.

[6]See the articles " Social violence: who sows misery ", Alternative 
libertaire no. 146, December 2005, and " Five years after the revolts, 
what has changed? ", Alternative libertaire no. 201, December 2010.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Octobre-novembre-2005-La-revolte-des-quartiers-populaires
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