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Recent riots in France were sparked by a tragic incident on June 27. During a routine traffic stop in a Parisian suburb, a 17-year-old of Algerian-Moroccan descent was fatally shot by a police officer. These events are reminiscent of similar occurrences in the United States, where tensions between law enforcement and marginalized communities have also led to protests and unrest.
Straight Arrow News contributor Larry Lindsey explores the role of identity in the differing reactions to police brutality in France and America.
It would be nice to think that France is just a kinder and gentler place than America, where race is really not an issue. Instead, that’s not the case. It’s more how people think about it.
France has an empire. It had an empire into the 1960s. In fact, its empire included roughly half of the entire continent of Africa. The French government wouldn’t rule those places, was not particularly known for its benevolence. In fact, even though the empire is no more, the French government does not hesitate to intervene in its former empire whenever there’s trouble. And France had an actual civil war just 60 years ago, based on its empire that was dissolving. It had to do with the Algerian War, which was a bloodbath, in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed. And it led to riots and even attempted assassinations in France itself.
So this is not exactly a clean history. It’s not the history that’s different, it’s the attitude. French police are more violent. They were violent, not just in this case but in the recent protests of the Yellow Jackets who were basically retirees protesting. There were recently riots about President Macron’s efforts to cut pensions. And whenever the police go in to suppress domestic violence, they do not hesitate to use force much more than in the U.S.
Why do two otherwise similar countries view this issue so much differently? I don’t know. I don’t know which is better. But it does go back to a fundamentally different attitude about the role of one’s identity.
In France, you’re French regardless; that’s less and less true here in America.
