Rioting Republic

The apparent inability of President Jacques Chirac government to control the rioting that has started in Paris nearly two weeks ago and spread all across the nation reveals a simmering structural crisis in France. Two great ideas that modern France represents — republicanism and social welfare — today stand tottering amidst rioting by the Arab-African immigrant underclass, most of whom are Muslims. The notion of equality among citizens — which lies at the heart of the republican idea — comprises the core of France’s contribution to modern political thought. It is a notion that the French political class has been ready to defend by any means.

Most of the rioters presently launching their midnight strikes today might be French in terms of citizenship, but they hardly belong to the Republic. Unemployment among the teeming immigrant ghettos is close to 20 per cent, twice that among whites, and incomes here are 40 per cent below the national average. Assimilation and equality might be the official policy in Paris, but in practice there are two sharply contrasting worlds existing cheek-by-jowl today. The suggested remedies, including one for reserving jobs for immigrants and their children, is unlikely to work. For one simple reason. France is not creating enough jobs. No one can deny that the French economy has been trapped in a no-growth phase. Yet Chirac, himself, has made it his mission to attack the Anglo-Saxon model of economic reforms as too liberal and unsuitable for France.

However, the riots are doing the talking today. They have underscored the reality that an over-bureaucratised and excessively regulated French model is a relic of the mid-20th century and is unlikely to survive the contradictions of this one. Chirac’s attempts to avoid globalisation by emphasising French nationalism look tragic as the riots expose the third world underbelly of France. France needs to urgently overhaul its social welfare state and initiate radical reforms to catch the prevailing economic winds in the world. Only by generating greater prosperity can Paris hope to raise all boats and ensure the survival of republicanism in France. Given the great political gift for mankind that the republican idea is, one can only hope France will begin to marry it to another great idea: economic liberalism.