FRENCH RIOTS - J'ACCUSE !

I usually blog in French, but this time I'll make an exception.

Being a French expatriate in London, I'm certainly not the best to comment on what the US and UK press qualify as "French riots" or "the burning banlieues". But as I love my country for its culture and its people, all of them, I am growing a certain anger while things seem still not to calm down, 24 hours after President Chirac's broadcast on French TV.

Why did "this" happen ? How the fuck can we know that ! I see all these social experts trying to rationalize the causes - chronicle racism, ignorance from the government, isolationism of opinions by the press. Yes yes, all that is true. But that's not the point.

The real reason is that France is a country of elite, or should I say, an elitistic country.
It is built on an oligarchy based in Paris, a culture that still places wealth of birth on top of any of other so-called republican value. It has forgotten what's make a powerful nation - cohesion and association through strong common modern values.

Liberté ? nonsense. In France, you live and breathe by the law. France is like the Titanic, and it's sinking under an iceberg of laws that cripples social cohesion and makes impossible any entrepreneurial spirit. France like to isolate itself. A new law is going to forbid any foreign takeover of any big French company - talking free competition ? forget it. It's like the politique agricole commune, the agricultural policy in Europe - a French diktat of quotas that benefits only to French farmers. I'm French, and I think there's no better food on the planet, no better cheese and no better wine - thanks for the efforts guys, but we're the best on that. Still, I think that the only and best way to protect my interests and values is to play the game of fairness with my enemies and competitors. Americans like junk food ? Well, let's do that then, let's do our own MacDonald shit. I'll inject you steroids myself if it'll keep French values safe, as well as keeping away France from being fined every month by Brussels.

Egalité ? hum. I remember saying to one of my best friend 15 years ago (I was 16) that nothing changed since the Revolution and the beheading of aristocratic values. True, we don't have a king or an emperor that rules the country for their own purposes anymore - we're apparently safe from dictatorship. Revolution has done more instead, it's given us a lot of little kings and queens - the bourgeoisie. Want to become a lawyer or a doctor ? think numbers now: you have the baccalaureate at 18, study at least 5 years in law or 8 years in medicine, then qualify as a lawyer or doctor. Oh, and don't even hope to get any sort of job in the meantime - the best you'll get is an unpaid summer job, working your ass of for a very questionable experience that doesn't add anything to your skills. So you'd better have wealthy bourgeois parents (I know what I'm talking about) for at least 6 or 7 years during university, or at least until you're 25 - and that is if you're a lucky good student with no social life whatsoever- there's a 80% rate failure after only the first 2 years of law university - think numbers.
And by the way, if you get a look at the names of French army commanders - they're almost all issue from the aristocracy. J'accuse !... Emile Zola is still so right...

Fraternité ? You don't think French are Brothers in arms ? I know some French that have more balls than anybody I've ever met - but they don't talk about it you see. They don't because it's part of one's good education - modesty has been a strong attribute of our personalities - shame as well, of not winning any major battle or war since Napoleon, of French's behaviour during WWII, of French's cultural antisemitism that is the basis of Le Pen's existence, and so and so.
My grand parents had balls. I'm a lucky proud French man - I tell you that ! During WWII, my grandmother was a resistant - I'm not really sure if she's done great heroic stuff but she did act as an hero to me. She didn't accept the Occupation and refused Collaboration - even though it could have caused her father many damages as he was an important director in the mines industry. She's born in German Sartre, got blue eyes and blond hair, and is the strongest French woman I know. She went to pee in the SS helmets and bicycles, stole the sword of a Wermacht Commander, insulted SS in front of the Gestapo's HQ in the North (her beauty and my grand grand father's authority saved her life). She refused to bow down. She resisted. Like those guys who're burning cars.
My grandfather had even more balls - he was a secret agent - and worked on behalf of the Americans during WWII. He never talked about it. After his death - my grandmother showed me his records - official thank you papers sent by the American HQ after the war.

Proud, very proud. And I've never talked about it. Because my shame is even greater.

My other grandparents were deported. By French police. Did they receive any sort of apologies ? I'm talking about personal apologies - you know official sorry and all papers from De Gaulle. Never received anything. They had to build everything from zero after 1945. My grandfather was a pioneer in the ORTF (ancester of French TV), and was arrested and deported in 1944. He went back to the ORTF after the war.

So now, why do you think those guys are burning cars ? Their parents or grandparents served France's best colonial interests during 100 years in the Maghreb region - did they receive any thank you note ? no, they were just rewarded with building French's roads, living in HLM that destroyed their own culture and made it worst everyday until today (HLM are those tall cheap housing buildings designed by Le Corbusier & Friends). I felt it strange that no voice abroad talked about that - maybe because they realise they also have lots of those HLM themselves in their own countries.

Is there a quick solution ? Of course not.
But Chirac is wrong - he should've talked about heroism and positivity and what makes France such a beautiful country - he should have had the balls to bring people together in a sort of great national reconciliation, in the street. It began in the street, it has and will finish in the street.

Go, go in the street. Shake your hands. Ask yourselves "who are you ?", "what's your name ?", "do you have brothers and sisters ?", "what is it to be a Christian ? to be a Muslim ?", "what sort of problems do you have ?" etc...

Go, go in the street. Reestablish the contact, the raport, the empathy. Don't let the politicians talk for you. Polls won't bring any durable solutions. You know what they want - Chirac, Sarkozy, the Socialists, Le Pen - you know what they want. Don't let them talk for you.

Have some balls, go in the street and talk. It's not going to take a day. It'll take forever. That's that being a strong nation - never rest on your laurels.