Post-Colonial Moment: Paris is Burning

For over a week Paris has dealt with riots mainly being perpetrated by those in the immigrant community in reaction to alleged police brutality. Angry immigrant youth gangs have burned some 50 automobiles and started more than 100 fires in stores and public places on the northeastern fringe of Paris. In brutal reaction the police hurled gas grenades at a mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois district 30 kilometers northeast of Paris.

The violence broke out after three children were electrocuted October 27 in a high-voltage electricity utility in Clichy sous Bois. Minister for the interior Nicolas Sarkozy first said the children were fleeing after a burglary, but the justice department later denied that any crime had taken place.

Mr Sarkozy had earlier sparked some criticism with hardline comments saying the government would not allow "troublemakers, a bunch of hoodlums, think they can do whatever they want."

Azouz Begag, deputy minister for equality of opportunity in the Chirac government, said Sarkozy was using "warrior" and "insulting" language to deal with social and security problems associated with the low-income immigrant population in France.

"Such remarks are a provocation," Begag, the sole immigrant member of the government, said in a statement.

Begag also questioned Sarkozy's methods of dealing with the explosive social climate in low-income regions of France. "We have to stop going in these sensitive zones of poverty surrounded by journalists and television cameras," Begag said. "What we have to do is to take time to listen patiently to the complaints of people, who have concrete reasons to feel discriminated against."