If I have understood correctly the theme of this first round table and the use of the four words placed side by side, you are setting out from four ideas: solidarity, exclusion, racism, humanitarian action. I will reverse the order of the terms to say: exclusion, racism, solidarity, and I will put humanitarian action in parentheses. You will understand why in a moment. I will therefore set out from an analysis of the French situation, from examples I know as the founder of an anti-racist movement in the mid-1980s and, subsequently, as an elected representative of the nation since 1988, as a deputy in the Assemblée Nationale.
French society: a society where nearly 3,500,000 people are without work; where more than 7,000,000 people are in a situation of precarity or poverty.
French society is run through by an affliction that took shape at the beginning of the 1980s, with the economic crisis, with the appearance of the consequences of the economic crisis, which has given rise to what we know today: that is, a society where nearly 3,500,000 people are without work, where more than 7,000,000 people are in a situation of precarity or poverty; with a concentration of all these social problems in a set of geographical sites that we find or that we call the banlieues of the large urban metropolises.
In this society, which saw these first elements of exclusion appear at the beginning of the 1980s, the populations that were the first to be affected were essentially, at the outset, populations of foreign origin; or in any case the visibility of these processes of exclusion concerned first of all populations of foreign origin, and for the French population, populations of foreign origin linked essentially to its former colonial empire. Notably the Maghreb region, and more particularly Algeria.
It is a matter of a population that had already been poorly integrated, from the outset, into French society — by the way the Algerian conflict had been settled. One can note the existence — at first, above all — of a population of Algerian origin that had taken part in the Algerian War on the side of the French army: the Harkis, or the children of those Harkis, who were concentrated in the housing estates of the Paris region, the Lyon region, or the south of France, the Mediterranean region. And then it came to involve all those who had arrived in the late 1960s to help France during its period of strong growth. This gave rise to the first revolts of young “Beurs” (which means “Arab” in verlan — French back-slang).
The foreign populations, being the last to come aboard, were the first affected by this economic crisis and by this massive exclusion from work.
They were the first elements to give material form to a situation of exclusion and of revolt against a society that was incapable of integrating them and that, in particular, gradually showed that it was incapable of granting them a status through work. Then this gradually spread to other populations, and we find ourselves today in a situation where a portion of the French population now finds itself in a situation of exclusion. So why begin with this description? Because I believe that, if visibility at first concerned the foreign populations, the cause of this situation is not the foreign character of those populations. It is first and foremost an economic situation. These populations, being the last to come aboard, were the first affected by the economic crisis and by the massive exclusion from work. For what we can say, after about ten years of confronting this situation, is that the primary cause of it is the lack of work and therefore of a status deriving from the possibility of integration through work. And this situation has lasted. It has lasted all the longer because, for an entire period, the political leadership took the view that the crisis was merely a parenthesis; that new solutions would therefore appear with an economic recovery and renewed growth.
But unfortunately, we observe today that what was called, throughout an entire period in political discourse, “tunnels” that were supposed to open onto radiant futures has dragged on indefinitely. The result is that all the solutions that were proposed, aimed at managing situations that were experienced as transitional, are today more and more poorly received by the populations concerned. That is to say, the whole body of young people in particular who were targeted by all the schemes of integration, reintegration, and social support — what are more generally called “odd jobs” or internships or fixed-term contracts — have massively rejected all those schemes, because they understood very well that what was at the outset temporary — that is, “you accept this situation and afterward things will get better” — has in fact dragged on indefinitely, and that they are being offered the chance to move from odd job to odd job and precisely not to succeed in integrating.
And that is precisely the major problem we face: this situation of exclusion that has widened, that endures, that moreover is concentrated — and this is the other problem posed — in a certain number of geographical sites that accumulate all the problems; that is, that accumulate both exclusion through work and, consequently, the problems of cohabitation within these geographical sites. And this, beginning from the problems of the failure to address the difficulties these populations encounter, which, on that basis, accumulate increasingly dramatic family and social situations: couples that break apart, hence the emergence of single-parent families; children no longer cared for by social services; municipalities that no longer have the financial means to compensate for these kinds of situations; living environments that grow more and more degraded; increasingly heightened violence, rising insecurity. This is the phenomenon that appeared at the beginning of the 1990s. A kind of counter-society establishes itself in these geographical zones, in these ghettos that are taking shape on the periphery of our large cities. This counter-society is essentially patterned by a parallel economy in which drugs (drug trafficking, narcotics trafficking) have become one of the essential elements organizing life in the estates. That is to say that, very gradually, a part of the population that has been excluded from work has tried to find means of livelihood in other practices, and notably in narcotics trafficking. I insist on narcotics trafficking, because I think — and I had been one of the first to point it out in the 1990s — that it has changed the nature of relations within our estates. It has become today a genuine parallel economy that rots the whole of our social relations, insofar as the financial sums in motion are considerable. It is no longer merely a matter of petty thieving to try to improve daily life or one’s everyday lot. It is no longer a matter of what we used to know in the 1960s: pickpocketing, small burglaries by a string of young people. It is essentially a matter of an organized, structured, hierarchized economy that sets enormous financial means in motion, that weaves its web, and that on that basis even organizes life within the estates around this trafficking. With a recent development, which we have witnessed over these past two or three years: those who engage in this illicit trafficking too have integrated the legal frameworks within which we operate; they know, for example, that to slip through the meshes of law enforcement the best means today is to use the youngest.
The racist phenomenon that is present today is first and foremost the product of this situation of exclusion that became concentrated, at first, on this type of population.
So, we have a parallel economy that has been built by instrumentalizing and using all the minors who are often enlisted in this process, and the economy has been built around that. And we now even have family units that live off the gains produced by this situation. And it has obviously become a dramatic situation, insofar as the territorial zones that have seen this type of trafficking penetrate are less and less under control from the standpoint of public order. This leads a certain number of officials to speak of the existence, in French society, of “no-go zones,” even if, obviously, the police can penetrate anywhere on the territory. We know that there are today geographical zones in which a structured, organized trafficking exists — not violent, because the traffickers need a certain calm precisely — but which is the product of this situation. I think that the racist phenomenon that is present today is first and foremost the product of this situation of exclusion that became concentrated, at first, on this type of population. Then, afterward, people theorized about the intrinsic capacities of these populations, given their ethnic origins, to integrate into the French republican model. Experience shows that this is not the essential factor. It is marginal. Even phenomena specific to populations from black Africa, to their cultural practices — I am thinking in particular of excision, or of a form of family organization that is not exactly the same form of family organization as in Western society — these phenomena fade away. That is to say, the norm that imposes itself on all these populations is the dominant norm of the societies in which they live. There are forms of resistance, but in the end, with time, it takes hold.
French current affairs have been punctuated, over all these recent years, by the presence of the Front National.
And on that basis, a part of the French population rejects these populations, trying to designate them as the scapegoats for its own difficulties. And this is the problem we know today, with the rise of a political force that is the bearer of that discourse — a political force that is more and more influential and that, this being a particularity of French political life, exists within the political debate. These situations of social exclusion are not specific to French society, but it is within politics, within the institutions of public life, that this debate about exclusion is carried by a force that has, from a certain point of view, succeeded in polarizing the whole of the political debate around its existence. We see that French current affairs have been marked, over all these recent years, by the presence of the Front National. They are punctuated by its electoral weight and by the way it conducts itself with regard to its excesses or with regard to its very existence. Up to now, one cannot but note that society has not been capable, despite all the attempts that have been put in place in one way or another, of limiting the rise and the presence of the Front National. It is today durably installed in French political life; it bears a discourse claimed as authentically racist. There have been stages in the rise of this discourse, but now it is authenticated as racist and openly assumed. And it is the point of reference, whether one likes it or not; it is the point of reference today, and that is indeed the difficulty in which we find ourselves.
So, to try to be brief and to conclude, here is my feeling regarding this situation.
I believe there are three things: for an entire period, the struggle against the rise of this intolerance, this racism, and this xenophobia was waged by the associative forces, through a generous mobilization aimed at denouncing the racist, xenophobic, intolerant character of all these discourses. That said, in this country there was a significant anti-racist mobilization with a very important civic mobilization; but that movement also shows its limits, insofar as this current does not have the capacity to attack the cause of the rise of these situations. And it even happens that a part of public opinion turns against those currents, accusing them of being responsible for the rise of racism.
The particularity in France is that we now have a part of the intellectuals who explains the rise of racism by the existence of an anti-racist movement, holding it responsible for a certain culpability of French society regarding the problems of delinquency or of drugs, saying, roughly: you have talked too much about these things, you have dramatized too much. The result is that you have made a part of society feel guilty, you have prevented it from reflecting in any lasting way.
Well, and the anti-racist movement thus finds itself taken to task, whereas I personally believe that it is not responsible for this situation. It had created a fertile ground that was positive, but it is not the movement that can fight against the real causes of this situation. The causes being, in my view, first and foremost economic causes. And we are in this difficult situation today. So I do not believe that one can fight against these phenomena simply through a discourse of vigilance or through a philosophical discourse against these ideas.
I think that, if there are no radically different policies from everything that has been done up to now, policies that attack the essential root of these problems — that is, exclusion from work — the risk exists for democracy in the years to come. French society is a good example of it, but I believe that other societies are liable to be subjected, themselves too, to this type of situation in the years to come. This therefore means that there is no solution that can be set in motion if we do not have a radically different reflection on the sharing of wealth, on redistribution in our societies.