Word: soused
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During 12 nights of violence last autumn in the banlieues of France, rioters trashed cars, schools, shops and much else. Sibaty Siby, 62, says it happened because hope had already been trashed there long ago. President of the Franco-African Association in Clichy-sous-Bois, the poor, high-rise community 20 km east of Paris where the rioting began, Siby figures one thing is as true in France today as it was when he was growing up in a village in Mali: "If you want to be trusted by people, you have to trust them yourself." France, he says...
...Siby came to France to work in 1968 and never left. He began as a Paris street sweeper, and ended up at a butcher shop. Since it went bankrupt seven years ago, he's become a kind of elder sage in Clichy-sous-Bois. He says there are many reasons why the young men in the neighborhood are disaffected and angry. Schools are often inadequate, jobs are scarce. But the big problem, Siby says, is housing. "These young guys need studio apartments. Instead they're in their twenties, still stuck in their parents' places with their little brothers and sisters...
...riots gave France a stark look at the cleft between its institutions and the poor, alienated people tucked away in its exurban housing projects. The worst of the dilapidated high-rises in Clichy-sous-Bois are slated for destruction later this year. There and elsewhere in the banlieues, there has been a post-rioting fillip in voter registration, suggesting to Siby that change can come through the ballot box. But like most other people in the banlieues, he's wary of politicians and their promises. The Intercultural Social Center, where Siby volunteers to help kids with their homework, is still...
...violence that started in the French suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois and spread to over 30 towns and cities has led the French government to temporarily impose a curfew and ban public gatherings. After weeks of rioting in the French Arab and African communities, the situation appears to have calmed down. But the calm is illusory, as the main underlying causes of the riots will most likely remain unaddressed...
...well as that of youths in the neighborhoods where the violence erupted. "I will slit his throat or shoot him with a Kalashnikov--no matter how, I'll kill him," says Osman, 14, to nods of approval from his middle-school classmates in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. But Sarkozy has also tapped into a craving for law and order within the French mainstream, which has recoiled at the rioters' defiance of the authorities. The rioters torched more than 7,500 cars in some 300 cities and towns throughout France and caused an estimated $235 million in damage...