Causes of the 2005 Riots

This post was going to be "Jacobin Republicanism vs. Cultural Pluralism."

The riots were actually fueled by the deaths of two boys on October 27, 2005. A witness named Siyakha Traoré recalls being intercepted on the street by a young boy named Muhittin Altun, a friend of his younger brother Bouna. Muhittin’s body was badly burned, his clothing was smoking, and young Muhittin was crying the names “Bouna… Zyad!” while pointing to the electric transformer a block away. Siyakha contacted the fire department and waited for them to come rescue his younger brother from the transformer. When the firemen found Bouna and Zyad, their bodies were so badly burned that Siyakha could not identify his own brother.

Bouna and Zyad climbed up into the electrical substation in an effort to escape the police. The boys had been walking home from a soccer match when the police spotted them and ordered the boys to provide identification. The boys had forgotten their papers at home, and they were afraid of what the police would do to them, so they fled. Bouna, Zyad, and Muhittin scaled the tall wall surrounding the substation and, once they were inside, the police determined that they could abandon their pursuit. As one police officer radioed to his commanding officer, “We need reinforcements to surround the neighborhood… On second thought, if they entered the EDF site, their skin is worth nothing now.” If the police had contacted the power company, the boys’ lives could have been spared. However, Sarkozy announced that the police had done nothing wrong, and that no investigation or indictment was necessary. Two days later friends, neighbors, and a thousand Parisians of every color gathered in the streets to mourn the deaths of the two boys. They held signs that said, “Dead for Nothing.” This was the beginning of a more poisonous relationship between the French police forces, Nicolas Sarkozy, and immigrant population.