“The children of this great wave of immigration are living in failure,” he says. “The failure of integration, the failure of schooling, the failure of employment.” Every day, Islamists are gaining ground in Saint-Denis. Militant Salafist and fundamentalist groups are active around the mosques, says the prefect, who finds the imams worryingly reluctant to speak to his officials. “The children of immigrants don’t recognise as their values those values that attracted their parents to France.” He remembers the first wave of North African immigrants: no veils, no beards, no Salafists. They came, he says, not just for French jobs but also for French liberty. “They were proud of those values. But I don’t think their children share the same pride.” Under his administration the prefect sees a generation in thrall to football, rap and Allah. And the old values? “They just don’t attach any value to them.”
Are the French people, those loyal to the Fifth Republic, falling apart? The only place to test this is a lycée. I take La Ligne 13 south of Saint-Denis and get off at Saint-Ouen, a banlieue best known for its flea market, to find one.
The French people were built by these lycées. This was how Paris colonised la France profonde which in the late 19th century mostly spoke dialects closer to Catalan and Italian. Has this system now broken down?
All lycées look alike: the textbooks the same; the lessons the same; the aquamarine frame chairs the same, everything making one Republic.
I sit at the back of a normal banlieue classroom. Bits of plastic and dust balls fleck the floor. Fifteen-year-olds yell and shriek. There are 28 of them: eight of them white, the rest black or Arab, and only one without an immigrant background. They don’t know it, but they are about to experience Coexist, a volunteer anti-racist project.
The class is divided into four groups and handed blank sheets of paper marked with black headings: French, Blacks, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Men and Women. The children are then told to fill in whatever words come into their heads. A group of eight fill in what comes into their heads for French. This is what they wrote: whites, whites, France, whites, whites, French blood, whites, born in France.
“The French, it’s them,” says a black boy pointing at a white one. “The French, they’re not us,” says an Arab girl. “To be French,” says an Arab boy, “you have to have all your family French, all of them back to . . . the start of humanity.” Almost all of them were born in this banlieue.
Mohammed, a cheeky boy with a brutal undercut, is asked to come to the blackboard to read out what his group wrote for Jew. He also presents a picture they drew for it.
“Jews ✡ = Sons of Bitches = $”
Why did you draw a dollar sign, asks the instructor?
Are the French people, those loyal to the Fifth Republic, falling apart? The only place to test this is a lycée. I take La Ligne 13 south of Saint-Denis and get off at Saint-Ouen, a banlieue best known for its flea market, to find one.
The French people were built by these lycées. This was how Paris colonised la France profonde which in the late 19th century mostly spoke dialects closer to Catalan and Italian. Has this system now broken down?
All lycées look alike: the textbooks the same; the lessons the same; the aquamarine frame chairs the same, everything making one Republic.
I sit at the back of a normal banlieue classroom. Bits of plastic and dust balls fleck the floor. Fifteen-year-olds yell and shriek. There are 28 of them: eight of them white, the rest black or Arab, and only one without an immigrant background. They don’t know it, but they are about to experience Coexist, a volunteer anti-racist project.
The class is divided into four groups and handed blank sheets of paper marked with black headings: French, Blacks, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Men and Women. The children are then told to fill in whatever words come into their heads. A group of eight fill in what comes into their heads for French. This is what they wrote: whites, whites, France, whites, whites, French blood, whites, born in France.
“The French, it’s them,” says a black boy pointing at a white one. “The French, they’re not us,” says an Arab girl. “To be French,” says an Arab boy, “you have to have all your family French, all of them back to . . . the start of humanity.” Almost all of them were born in this banlieue.
Mohammed, a cheeky boy with a brutal undercut, is asked to come to the blackboard to read out what his group wrote for Jew. He also presents a picture they drew for it.
“Jews ✡ = Sons of Bitches = $”
Why did you draw a dollar sign, asks the instructor?
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