It was ten years ago when France declared a ‘State of Emergency’ whilst being gripped by nationwide rioting in 274 towns, with 2,888 arrests, 2 deaths and over €200 million worth of damage caused to property. Poverty, discrimination, high youth unemployment and police harassment in poor ‘immigrant’ housing estates (banlieues) throughout suburban France stoked tensions with the authorities. The spark came with the deaths of two youths after a police chase. In the glare of the world’s media, it appeared that France was in flames.

If we fast-forward to 2015 nothing has changed. Youth unemployment has risen from 20.2% in 2005 to 24.4% in August 2015. If you are one of the 8.1 million living in the banlieues you can expect youth unemployment to be well over 40%. According to new research by Yann Algan and colleagues at Sciences-Po university, somebody called Mohamed, Ali or Kamel is four times more likely to be unemployed than somebody named Philippe or Alain.

“The reality is, lots of people are happy the banlieues exist to cage up people they don’t want to see or worry about… If we’re out of sight and out of mind, c’est bien. I’m not even sure they’d care if rioting broke out again—so long as it stayed in the banlieues, and didn’t threaten to spill into where the rest of France lives.” – Banlieue Resident

The children and grandchildren of those North-African and Sub-Saharan immigrants who flocked to France during the 1960’s and 70’s feel marginalised. Because of their ethnicity. Many because of their faith.

For decades successive French governments have failed to integrate thousands upon thousands of these young people into French mainstream society and today France’s prisons are bulging with the ‘children’ of the banlieues. It is estimated that 60% of French prisoners are Muslim whilst Muslims account for less than 10% of the general population.

They have little hope of their lives improving for them or their next generation. This is incredibly dangerous and has has had dreadful consequences in recent years.

Recent Terrorist Attacks in France

March 2012: A French Algerian killed three soldiers, a teacher and three young students at a Jewish school in Toulouse. He was later shot dead.

23 May 2013: A ‘convert’ to Islam named as Alexandre Dhaussy stabbed a French soldier in the neck at La Defense in Paris. The soldier survived the attack.

7 January 2015: Said and Cherif Kouachi shoot dead 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

8 January 2015: Amedy Coulibaly kills a policewoman before entering a Jewish supermarket in Paris where he shot dead four others. Both Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers were later shot dead by police.

26 June 2015:In a chemical factory near Grenoble, one man was beheaded and several others were injured. One man was arrested in what President Francois Hollande called a terror attack.

21 August 2015:Three off-duty marines overpowered an armed gunman on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris. Three people including the suspect were injured. The Americans and several other passengers held the man down until police arrived. He was later arrested in Arras, northern France.

13 November 2015:Scores dead as men armed with Kalashnikovs and grenades carried out a series of attacks at restaurants, a concert hall and outside Stade de France in Paris. President Hollande has closed the borders and declared a state of national emergency. 130 people were killed, 368 injured. ISIS Recruitment

When a minute percentage of French and European born Muslims no longer see Paris as the “City of Lights” but rather the “Capital of Prostitution and Obscenity,” we all have a fundamental problem. The prison system has become the recruitment sergeant for terror organisations like ISIS which have infiltrated prisons throughout France and the UK. Some young men, who have spent their teenage years engaging in petty crime and gang culture, marginalised by the society they were born into, are finding solace, peace and ‘spiritual’ fulfilment in radical Islamist preachers.

A recent Guardian report stated that of the estimated 3000 European Muslims who have travelled to the Middle-East just less than half are of French origin, whilst over 400 have left UK shores. A considerable amount of these have spent time on prison. An astounding figure.

Mohamed Merah, the Toulouse terrorist of 2012, grew up in a tough banlieu, began as a small-time petty criminal, was sent to prison, and emerged a hardened jihadi. Mehdi Nemouche, involved in the May 2014 murder of four people in Brussels, was also radicalised in prison. He travelled to Syria when he was freed and then came back to attack the Jewish museum. Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly both followed a similar trajectory of lack of opportunity, descent into criminality, prison and radicalisation.

“Electronic Jihad”

One of the most worrying things about the Paris Attacks was ISIS’s ability to radicalise people in such a short space of time. Their ability to recruit stretches far and wide. I have seen news coverage of British and Austrian schoolgirls, leaving their homes to board buses to Turkey to get into Syria. Brahim Abdeslam, who carried out shootings at bars and restaurants in Paris owned a bar in Molenbeek, Belgium, which was shut down. He regularly drank beer and smoked hashish. Yet two months after his business was forced to close down he caused terror in Paris. Why? It remains a mystery.

ISIS’s smooth online propaganda machine has been fantastic at preying on the vulnerable. It is something that the all global security services have never come across in its ability the harness social media so effectively and distribute its vile and twisted ideology. When there is an organisation that can so accurately target the young, disenfranchised, despondent minorities the French government has to tow a delicate line.

François Hollande’s Dilemma

Who could envy François Hollande’s position? His poll ratings are in the toilet only months from a French presidential election. Having stated that France was now at “War” and declaring a state of emergency, what next when the state of emergency is lifted? Does he continue to bang the nationalistic drum hoping to peel votes away from the Republicans? How can he counteract the hate and divisiveness of the National Front under Le Pen?

If he is to be remembered as a true leader at a time of national crisis he has to somehow provide leadership and solidarity to the people of the banlieues. If not, the French election campaign may be the catalyst for mass civil unrest, something which could make the 2005 riots look acceptable. Le Pen has already spoke of mass deportations and the un-Islamisation of France blatantly preying on the mood of post-Paris attacks and Europe’s migrant crisis. These attacks were abhorrent in the eyes of all French citizens, but yet it is France’s Muslim minority who are the easy targets for further stigmatisation. Attacks on mosques have increased, physical assaults on the streets and further heavy handedness by the police and security services are eroding the solidarity shown in the light of the Paris attacks.

“We are living through a war, but it is not a war between Islam and the West. It is a war between those who are blind, violent, and full of hatred, who want to sell us their wars and instil mistrust – and those who are seeking peace, better understanding and justice. I have chosen my side. Have you?” – Samia Hathroubi

Avoiding Further Marginalisation

Those of us from Irish extraction are well aware of marginalisation and demonisation. For as long as there has been a printed press the British right-wing media have portrayed the Irish in an unfavourable light.

When the Bishopsgate bomb went off in the City of London in 1993, a few miles from where I was living at the time the Irish community was gripped with trepidation. It is difficult to describe the feeling you have of a terror campaign being conducted by people from your own community. Walking into school or work the following day is foreboding. Just like it must be for France’s Muslim minority in the past few years after its numerous terror attacks.

For centuries the British political establishment failed to grasp the needs and aspirations of its Irish citizens. In the case of Northern Ireland, when civil unrest broke out in 1969, the British political establishment was caught with its blindfold on. Unable to see the blatant discrimination of its nationalist minority. In 2005 the French political establishment was caught like a deer in headlights too when rioting broke out.

France is like a tinderbox at the moment. There has to be a measured response to this terror. When British soldiers opened fire on the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association protest (in 1973) killing 13 people any respect moderate Irish nationalists had for the British authorities was lost and gone forever. ‘Bloody Sunday’ became the biggest recruitment sergeant for the IRA. I sincerely hope the French establishment does not make the same mistake. It only takes a trigger happy person in uniform to do so.

A Coalition Of Tolerance

Those of us from the West are extremely creative when in comes to forming coalitions… military coalitions that is. As the air-forces of all the major Western powers continue to pound the soil of Iraq and Syria little is being done to undermine the ideology that ISIS exports to all corners of the globe. The rise in global Islamophobia is extremely worrying. Something that can only galvanise ISIS and its affiliates.

In the United States Muslim-Americans look on in horror at the language that is emanating from the Republican Party during their nomination process. Ben Carson stated that Islam is “not compatible with the United States constitution”, and that a Muslim should never be allowed to become President of the United States. Donald Trump by contrast has spoken of a “Muslim database” so the movements of every Muslim in America could be followed whilst issuing every American Muslim with a “Muslim ID” card. It sounds more like 1930’s Germany than the ‘Land of the Free’.

In the UK too, right-wing Islamophobic vitriol piles off the printed press. If we are going to defeat this ideology we have to be united in condemning it. Not adding fuel to the fire that supports it.

Just how will the French presidential campaign unfold? Will any candidates address the roots of radicalisation? Tackle poverty, educational attainment and discrimination in the banlieues? Will it be a referendum on religious tolerance? Will the election campaign stoke so much hatred that the banlieues will rise up again? Will the French National Front enrage so many citizens that their supporters take to the streets? Who knows?

Perhaps nothing destructive will happen at all.. For the sake of my dear friends in France. I sincerely hope so.

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