Though the violence that has hit France over the last two weeks is showing signs of abating, the political battle over how to deal with it may have just begun, reports David Tresilian from Paris French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin last week declared a state of emergency in France in response to the violence in the country's towns and suburbs that has seen thousands of cars burned and arson attacks on businesses, schools and public buildings. Introduced under legislation dating back to 1955 and originally designed to deal with unrest in France during the Algerian war of independence, the emergency law allows local authorities to introduce curfews and the suspension of normal police procedures. The announcement, made in a televised interview, was met with widespread approval, opinion polls showing that nearly three-quarters of the French public supported the government's tougher line in dealing with the violence. However, reaction to it among the country's political class was more mixed, the French newspaper Le Monde saying in a front-page editorial that the declaration of a state of emergency, not made even in 1968 when France suffered similar widespread violence, indicated that the prime minister had "lost his nerve" in dealing with the situation and that it sent out the wrong message to the population of France's poorer suburbs, many of whom are of North African or African origin. Resurrecting a 1955 law to deal with the violence "sends out a message of staggering brutality to the young people in the suburbs", many of whom are of Algerian or North African origin, the newspaper commented, showing that 50 years after the Algerian war "France intends to treat them as it treated their grandparents." The Algerian war of independence, breaking out in 1955 and leading to the independence of Algeria from France in 1962, was marked by atrocious acts of violence on both sides, the 1955 emergency laws being used to control France's Algerian population at the time and in an attempt to prevent the war spreading from Algeria, then a French colony, to France itself. Under the present "re-activation" of the 1955 law, local authorities are allowed to declare curfews, and the law gives the government sweeping powers to forbid public meetings, shut down venues and meeting places, close areas to traffic and control the press, should it consider it necessary to do so. Last week, some 20 towns and cities across France had declared curfews directed against young people, who make up the majority of the rioters, including a curfew in Paris itself last weekend following reports that rioters may have been planning to invade the capital. The curfews, declared in advance for specified periods, typically make it an offence for young people under the age of 18 to be on the streets after 10 o'clock at night, failure to comply being punished with heavy fines. While the violence showed signs of abating last weekend, with fewer cars burned nationally and many of the country's worst-affected areas getting back to normal, the political debate in France has now begun on what can be done to deal with the social and economic problems thought to have been responsible for it and on the government's performance in handling it, particularly the part played by the Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy, a presidential hopeful in the 2007 elections, is widely held to have provoked or exacerbated the rioting through his hard-line attitudes on policing France's poorer suburbs where the rioting has mostly been taking place, notably through a series of comments describing the rioters as "racaille" (yobs). Last week Sarkozy provoked further controversy when he announced in the Assemblée Nationale, the French parliament, that of the 1,800 people arrested thus far in connection with the riots, most of them under the age of 24, 120 of them were not French nationals. Should these people be convicted of taking part in the riots, they would automatically be deported, Sarkozy said, whether or not they had residence papers. The announcement was immediately denounced by human-rights groups and treated with scepticism by sections of the press, which questioned the practicality of any such move. Sarkozy also provoked protests from among the police last week, when eight policemen were suspended from duty after having been caught on film beating up a young man of North African origin thought to have been involved in the riots. Meanwhile, debate in France has focused on the performance of the government more generally in handling the riots, earlier reports having criticised it for not taking the situation seriously enough, instead treating it as a political football in the run-up to the 2007 presidential elections. Both de Villepin and Sarkozy, believed to be personal and political rivals, are thought to be intending to stand in the election for the centre-right vote, and both may want to milk the riots in support of their campaigns. According to last week's edition of the satirical weekly Le Canard encha"né de Villepin's announcement of a state of emergency was made with one eye on the upcoming presidential elections, in which he will need to fight back strongly against Sarkozy, who has made law and order a main plank of his campaign. "Emergency: Villepin wants to be head of state!" the newspaper's headlines said last week. "He's resurrected a 1955 law to prepare for the 2007 elections!" Elsewhere, the press has focused on the apparent absence of president Jacques Chirac from debate on the problems of France's deprived areas and on the current riots. Now in his second term as president and viewed as a lame-duck figure in the run-up to the 2007 elections, Chirac has only once commented publicly on the situation, calling for all parties to exercise calm. "Is there still anyone in the Elysée Palace," official residence of the president, the Canard encha"né asked in a headline last week. Fearing worse to come, the president may be trying to hide behind the government and "float above the fray" as "Mongénéral" (General de Gaulle) did in May 1968, the newspaper said, with personally disastrous results.
