France smolders. I guess that's progress.

Although the burnings continue and police are still at risk for having birdshot fired at their heads, France's emergency police powers (which the government is trying to extend for three months) seem to be quelling the worst of the unrest.

French President Jacques Chirac, in his first national address since the outbreak of violence, had much to say about the conditions that created the tinderbox atmosphere in the immigrant-dominated banlieues . In between calls for a restoration of order, Chirac said:

These events bear witness to a profound malaise...This is a crisis of direction, a crisis in which people have lost their way, it is a crisis of identity....

We know well that discrimination saps the very foundations of our Republic... But let us not deceive ourselves: this fight can only be won if we each take a real and personal stand.

Companies and union organizations must also work actively on the essential question of diversity and of the employment of young people from problem districts.

The interesting thing is that Chirac is very good at saying these things, but apparently powerless (or without the political will) to do much about it. The Economist leads its current issue with a very stinging criticism of Chirac:

“In the deprived suburbs, a kind of soft terror rules. When too many young people see nothing ahead but unemployment after they leave school, they end up rebelling. For a time the state can struggle to impose order, and rely on welfare benefits to avoid worse. But how long can this last?”

Thus one rational analysis of the forces that lie behind the riots, car-burnings and street battles with police that have broken out, first in the banlieues of Paris and then right across France, every night for the past two weeks. It is an analysis that points to a pressing case for action to build a greater sense of identity with French society among the rioters, most of whom are second-generation Muslims of north or west African origin. It also highlights the dispiriting effects of high unemployment as something needing urgent attention.

Yet what is most depressing about the words quoted above is that they were written over ten years ago, in January 1995, by a leading centre-right politician named Jacques Chirac. Mr Chirac has been France's president since May 1995, surely long enough for him and his various governments to do more to help the “deprived suburbs”. But almost throughout his time in office, French unemployment has hovered close to or above 10%; the average rate of youth unemployment has lately been over 20%, one of the highest in Europe; and unemployment among young Muslims in the banlieues has generally been twice as high again. This week the president said little or nothing to echo the forthright views he expressed in 1995: he confined his scant public remarks on the riots to a simple call for the restoration of law and order.

First things first, of course, as I've argued from the beginning. But this is not a new problem, and there clearly has been a national debate about it for some time. The problem is that politically correct hand-wringing will do nothing to salve these wounds--I suspect that the French will need to take a very hard look at how to put their economic house in order. An overall unemployment rate of 10% is bad enough, a youth unemployment rate of 23% (roughly twice America's) is worse, but 40% in the "sensitive urban zones" is just asking for trouble.

(And just so I don't get accused of being the pot that calls the kettle black, America's minority unemployment needs quite a bit of downsizing as well. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment among African-Americans aged 16-19 is 31.1% as of October 2005; however, the overall unemployment rate for adult black men is is 8.1%. Hispanic 16-19 unemployment is 17.9%, and only 4.4% for adult men.)

Tags: France French Riot Unrest Demonstration Chirac Police Unemployment