Paris burning

The French word "banlieue" simply means the extension of the city out of its historical borders.

Neuilly-sur-Seine, Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers, Issy-les-Moulineaux, Nanterre, Bobigny, Courbevoie, Montreuil, Créteil, La Courneuve. All those places are simply districts of Paris. In any other western country, it would be part of the city. In any western country except in France, where the borders of Paris have been enlarged only once since the revolution in 1789 (Despite the city being 20 times bigger than then).

There are 36,000 municipalities in France. That's as many as in all the 24 other members of the EU together. To let you compare, there are 8,000 municipalities in Germany, 8,000 also in Spain. French municipality borders are totally outdated. We should have 4 times less municipalities.

kryszcztov said:

Yeah, she doesn't have a pirate eye, for a start.

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I meant that Marine Le Pen is not an FN voter as any other, since she's the daughter of the guy who founded the party.

By the way, if you want to know, before debating with her, I've prepared myself because I know that if I would start getting pissed off I would lose any credibility. But hey ! That hoar succeeded to piss me off. I wanted to kill her and people noticed it.

Marla_Singer said:

The French word "banlieue" simply means the extension of the city out of its historical borders.

Neuilly-sur-Seine, Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers, Issy-les-Moulineaux, Nanterre, Bobigny, Courbevoie, Montreuil, Créteil, La Courneuve. All those places are simply districts of Paris. In any other western country, it would be part of the city. In any western country except in France, where the borders of Paris have been enlarged only once since the revolution in 1789 (Despite the city being 20 times bigger than then).

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I live in Colombes, which is as far from Paris as Nanterre, and here it's clearly the "banlieue". I mean, there's nothing resembling Paris here, the housing is very different, the only way to get here by public transportation by night (1am-5am) is the Noctilien (night bus), which I'm reluctant to use (too few buses, but it seems they have changed a bit from the Noctambus), house prices are lower, etc... 25 years of that and I have enough of it. Paris intra-muros for me please, PLEASE ! I guess being very close to Paname like you are and having easy access to the Metro is quite a compensation, but it still doesn't feel like Paris.

There are 36,000 municipalities in France. That's as many as in all the 24 other members of the EU together. To let you compare, there are 8,000 municipalities in Germany, 8,000 also in Spain. French municipality borders are totally outdated. We should have 4 times less municipalities.

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Interesting. Also in some cities we have "mairies de quartier" (district city halls (OK, they're nothing like "city halls")), like in mine. Means I don't necessarily have to go to the city hall to do some stuff.

Marla_Singer said:

I meant that Marine Le Pen is not an FN voter as any other, since she's the daughter of the guy who founded the party.

By the way, if you want to know, before debating with her, I've prepared myself because I know that if I would start getting pissed off I would lose any credibility. But hey ! That hoar succeeded to piss me off. I wanted to kill her and people noticed it.

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Better make fun of your enemy ! Look at what I did to Curt in this thread, on a different issue : he disappeared after 2 of my posts. (note that he won't disapprove the word "enemy", which is his usual business here )

Curt where are you ? We were having fun, both of us.

kryszcztov said:

I live in Colombes, which is as far from Paris as Nanterre, and here it's clearly the "banlieue". I mean, there's nothing resembling Paris here, the housing is very different, the only way to get here by public transportation by night (1am-5am) is the Noctilien (night bus), which I'm reluctant to use (too few buses, but it seems they have changed a bit from the Noctambus), house prices are lower, etc... 25 years of that and I have enough of it. Paris intra-muros for me please, PLEASE ! I guess being very close to Paname like you are and having easy access to the Metro is quite a compensation, but it still doesn't feel like Paris.

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If Paris was London, Colombes would be part of the Greater London. The feeling is different just like each district have its particular feeling, but it's still a part of the city, Colombes is not surrounded by fields, it's surrounded by buildings. If you go in the Queens in New York, you'll realize some neighbourhoods are actually of very low density (made of houses), but it's part of the city of New York.

To get you a picture, Paris (75) is like Manhattan, Hauts-de-Seine (92) is like Brooklyn, Val-de-Marne (94) is like the Queens, and Seine-St Denis (93) is like the Bronx.

Interesting. Also in some cities we have "mairies de quartier" (district city halls (OK, they're nothing like "city halls")), like in mine. Means I don't necessarily have to go to the city hall to do some stuff.

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Like that arrondissement city hall in Paris. Once again, if Paris were London, the district of Colombes would have it's own district city hall, but it would still be part of the Greater Paris. Check out places like Fulham, Wimbledon or Tottenham in London, those would be "banlieues" in Paris but they are part of the Greater London.

In France, there's the municipality of Colombes, and then the region (Ile-de-France), which include the cows nears Nemours or Provins. There's no authorities on the city of Paris as a whole. The actual mayor of Paris only control the center.

According to me, it's a priority to establish a Greater Paris including all the 4 departments of the center (75, 92, 93, 94), just like there's a Greater London.

Ok, first of all excuse me if I make some stupid typo's, I've got an amount of alcohol down my throat deemed illegal in most countries
I had something to hunt for ... but that's beside the point.

I just came back to my dorm (at 6 am, help me whatever deity there might be), and I checked vrtnieuws.net (a Belgian state television online broadcast)
Apperantly, there have been cars torched in the three largest Belgian cities : Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent.
Not as dramatic as in France, because less than a dozen cars and building gone up in flames in each of those cities, but it does mean the violence has spread over the national borders of France.

However, I strongly, even in this alcoholic state of mind, condemn the use of terrorist violence against innocent natives and their property, who have nothing to do with the entire charade.
I don't understand why those immigrants are torching things in my home country, Belgium, because our cité's are built in the middle of city instead of the outskirts like in France, our cité's consist of small houses or appartments of maximum three stories (with minimally 22 m² per inhabitant), our police is nnot nearly as arrogant as the French police (ours is usually deemed too friednyl by most natives) and thye all get at least 750 € unemployment money which is a lot higher than in France.
Also, we have no minister Sarkozy to fire, so what the hell can we do to please them and stop destroying our property ????

Sorry, but I'm so confused right now.
Ok, we have a higher immigrant unemployment rating among the foreigners than the French (80 % unemployed immigrants in Brussels to 54 % in Paris and outskirts), ok, we have stacked them more together than the French beceuase of our open and free school system which is abused by the immigrants to all go the same school and increase the ghetto attitude in class, and finally yes, we have more immigrants than France per capita.
But still, despite that, it's not our fault. We do not tolerate discrimination, and we won't tolerate affirmative action. They get equal chances ... college is very cheap in Belgium (only 500 € admission per year and 100 € for books), those immigrants who are willing to make something out of their lifes have the chance, but they usually waste it by going to labor school (lowest category where they can quit earlier to work faster and earn money before we, darn, college kids do)
They have no single disadvantage compared to native Belgians, I'd even say they have a few positive advantages, but still, they're torching parts of our cities because they have no job or whatever. It's not the Belgian people's business to take care of the upbringing of those foreign youngsters, don't blame us because your parents have no control over you anymore, what the hell can we do about that ?

I mean, at least those French immigrants consider themselves French, but left out of the society. We've given them almost everything we can offer, but even after 3 generations they proclaim they're Moroccan/Turkish first, muslim second and maybe, ... maybe a little bit Flemish, but not much.
How can that be ?

They often call those questioning the immigrants "bange blanke man" in Dutch (EN : frightening white man)
Well, perhaps we are, because we have no idea what's wrong with those people or their parents, we ahve no idea how to solve this problem without interfering into private life and lastly, we have no idea why they're rioting against because we didn't do anything wrong at all (except perhaps the 27 % who's gonna vote far right, but honnestly, how can you blame them now ?)

Bozo Erectus said:

Jass very informative post
Seriously, I had no idea France was such a racist country.

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I personnally don't see this racism. In my company we are ten people. One is algerian, another is tunisian. Both are muslims.

Marla_Singer said:

The French word "banlieue" simply means the extension of the city out of its historical borders.

Neuilly-sur-Seine, Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers, Issy-les-Moulineaux, Nanterre, Bobigny, Courbevoie, Montreuil, Créteil, La Courneuve. All those places are simply districts of Paris. In any other western country, it would be part of the city. In any western country except in France, where the borders of Paris have been enlarged only once since the revolution in 1789 (Despite the city being 20 times bigger than then).

There are 36,000 municipalities in France. That's as many as in all the 24 other members of the EU together. To let you compare, there are 8,000 municipalities in Germany, 8,000 also in Spain. French municipality borders are totally outdated. We should have 4 times less municipalities.

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Strange ,i always thought France was a rather Centralized country ,this gives more an impression of decentralization.Do the individual municipalities have substantial power and autonomy of finances?

Decentralization can easily explain a lot of such problems in big city's.Ill give the ex. of Belgium ,wich is a very decentralized country with lots of power on the local level.Lets take Antwerp ,now Antwerp itself is devided in repectivly the core city ,and the individual towns around it that got urbanized with it.
In Belgium the middle and rich class who work in large city's or near it ,prefer to live outside the city (a sleeping city) where livig conditions are quite good) rather than inside the city. (where there is more crime ,more slums ,and where generaly more immigrants live) Such an evolution is not new or exclusive to Belgium.However it create's a rift in the finances of the City Antwerp and the towns around it.Antwerp city itself has on the one hand most crime ,on the other hand most poor class people of all these towns ,resulting in less income and more costs towards such thing's as policing.The towns around it otoh have few crime ,and a very good income since most of their inhabitants are middle/rich class.The qonsequence is that while the City of Antwerp itself has shortage's to pay it's hughe costs ,the towns around it bathe in money and so spend large sums for more luxurious needs.The police in the wealthier towns around Antwerp have it fairly easy and calm ,while in the City itself the police is understaffed ,sometimes underequiped ,and genneraly can only prioritize on the worser of cases.But it's not that the police of the towns around Antwerp would go patrol much in Antwerp itself ,other juristriction...

But i thought france was more centralized because towns and city'(s in france aint that fragmented as in Belgium.A very large percentage of the French poppulation live in Large city's ,and comparad to Belgium there are far fewer towns. (in France at places you can drive 100 kilmometers and see almost nothing but agriculture around you ,thats impossible in Belgium)

All this semantic debate about what "banlieue" means is completely beside the point...

My points were that I don't recognize my country in the description given of racism and police oppression, and that the people crying the most about police annoying them, are usually the same who are actually really deserving police's attention, and that they are attracting this attention because of societal and behavioural displays, much more than ethnic/racial displays.
It's theses points that have a link to the actual subject, not some kind of "let's define banlieue"...

Steph said:

I personnally don't see this racism. In my company we are ten people. One is algerian, another is tunisian. Both are muslims.

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If this was North Korea, the Ministry of Propaganda would choose your company to set up a tour for foreigners !

Seriously, are they Algerian and Tunisian, or French in the first place ? If they're real foreigners (with a need for a "carte de séjour", I believe), that wouldn't surprise me at all. If they're French all along but from Algerian-Tunisian descent, then your company is fine. That means that racism is elsewhere than where you work.

@ TheDuckOfFlanders : France still is a very centralized country. Decentralization hasn't really entered the scene here. In fact we have inherited a system from the Revolution and Napoléon : Etat -> régions -> départements -> arrondissements -> cantons -> communes. This is a very complex pyramid with many levels, as we like it here in France. I won't enter the debate of whether this is good or bad, this is off-topic and I don't know anyway. Just note that the landscape display has little to do with centralization...

eyrei said:

It is my understanding that it was common for police to harrass young men in the neighborhood where the initial incident occurred by asking to review their 'papers'. If you want to sow discontent against the government, one of the best ways is to have police harrass people from certain groups to show them that they really aren't part of the society because they cannot be trusted to get along without police supervision.

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One of the missions of the police is to find illegal immigrants. Such illegal immigrants are seldom from Norway, and they seldom live in the rich parts of Paris.
So if the police want to find them, I don't find it strange that they look in poorer neighborounds and check first people from Africa, as they are a good part of the illegal immigrants.

Legal immigrants may not like it, but can someone give me another workable solution?

Steph said:

One of the missions of the police is to find illegal immigrants. Such illegal immigrants are seldom from Norway, and they seldom live in the rich parts of Paris.
So if the police want to find them, I don't find it strange that they look in poorer neighborounds and check first people from Africa, as they are a good part of the illegal immigrants.

Legal immigrants may not like it, but can someone give me another workable solution?

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Increase control at the border ? And leave the cities and their inhabitants. If we have many illegal people in France, it's because we failed to get them when they first entered the territory. Why would whole minorities pay for the authorities' failure ?? What the police is currently doing is just putting the fault on the people who don't deserve it. Let the police have their evidence first, and leave people alone in the street.

kryszcztov said:

Because I consider socialists to be better than communists in many ways for a start...

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What a great achievment. Is it even possible to be worse than the communists?

kryszcztov said:

Increase control at the border ? And leave the cities and their inhabitants. If we have many illegal people in France, it's because we failed to get them when they first entered the territory. Why would whole minorities pay for the authorities' failure ?? What the police is currently doing is just putting the fault on the people who don't deserve it. Let the police have their evidence first, and leave people alone in the street.

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If someone steal your car, it's your fault because you did not protect it correclty in the first place. The police should not try to find the thief afterward.

Beside, now we have open borders in Europe, what if the illegal immigrants are coming from Spain or Italy? Why the French police shouldn't do its job in France if the Spanish or Italian cops failed to control the borders of Europe?

kronic said:

I like that.

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You think it´s OK to burn crops of GM food?
I don´t care if freaks like this Mamere fellow get married to his gay dog, but if I had farm with GM food and he attempted to burn it, I´d shoot him aiming for the head.

Marla_Singer said:

In France, banlieues designate the development of the city out of its historical borders. Banlieue is a word from medieval roots... it designate "le lieu du ban" (the location of the ban), that's because in the Middle Age, people who were banished of the city usually moved at the periphery of it.

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Another ethyomology is "la lieue du ban" (the league of the ost).
It was one league wide around the city where the lord could call for the peasant in the army ("battre le ban et l'arrière ban").

"Faubourg" is used for the part of the city outside the city wall (i.e. out of its historical borders)

kryszcztov said:

Seriously, are they Algerian and Tunisian, or French in the first place ? If they're real foreigners (with a need for a "carte de séjour", I believe), that wouldn't surprise me at all. If they're French all along but from Algerian-Tunisian descent, then your company is fine. That means that racism is elsewhere than where you work.

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They are real foreigners, and not from Algerian-Tunisian descent. However, this has no effect on the job. We offers some jobs, they answered the add, they had the skills, they had the jobs. It would have been the same if they had been from Algerian-Tunisian descent. It would even have been a bit easier because hiring a foreigner requires more administrative work.

Small update on this : Rioters are shouting "Allah o Akbar" at the police . As I had predicted previously in this thread , Islam has ( again ! ) become the rallying point .

The unrest seems to have diminished tonight. I guess that after the initial feeling of power and "we can do it !", these idiots start to realize the size of what they created, what they will face, and how all what they will probably achieve is to worsen their situation.
We'll see if it's only a respite, or some more long-term calm.

TheDuckOfFlanders said:

Strange ,i always thought France was a rather Centralized country ,this gives more an impression of decentralization.Do the individual municipalities have substantial power and autonomy of finances?

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There are so many municipalities because France is an over-centralized country. That goes together. When you want all power to be in the hand of the capital city, you don't create large and powerful administrative divisions, but rather multiple smaller ones. As such, France has been divided in 100 departments and 36,000 municipalities. The 22 regions are rather new (the 70's). Actually, there weren't any mayor for Paris untill the 70's too... before that, there was only the 20 mayors of arrondissement.

It's the divide to better rule principle.