withdrawal of the police from the quarter.
Some days later, as the country was preparing for the New Year festivities, two youths were caught by security guards in a supermarket stealing food and drinks. A fight broke out and one of them succeeded in escaping into the car park, where he stopped and hijacked the car of a shopper.
His escape coincided with the arrival of a police patrol, whose intervention resulted in a crash and the death of the youth provoking a riot and pillaging in the supermarket and its surrounding shops. Men, women and children from the nearby housing project poured in stealing meat, drinks, clothes and electrical goods. It quickly transformed into the worst rioting ever seen in France in modern times.
The arrival of the CRS aggravated the situation and the supermarket and surrounding buildings set on fire. By the early evening the riot spread to the nearby housing projects with cars burnt and barricades set up to prevent the fire services entering into action. The violence of the night surprised even the hardest of the police and fire services.
The following day the barricades remained in place in spite of appeals from the mayor and immigrant associations. That same evening under the cover of night the first shots were fired killing a CRS and provoking counter fire.
The following Monday morning Transport and City cleaning services went on strike, the same day Unions and workers’ associations in Paris and other cities condemned police brutality and called for a general strike. Riots broke out in the large working class suburbs and looting broke out.
In Marseille the mob turned its attention to the city centre, looting shops and department stores, and burning cars. The mayor called in a large contingent of CRS who tried to evacuate the Cannebier with tear gas, water cannons and clubs without success, the mob then turned its attention to the city hall and the CRS riposted with tear gas and then rubber bullets. The mob became enraged and over turning cars set up barricades certain returning fire with real bullets, the city hall was invested by the mob, looted and then burnt to the ground and in the ensuing battle twenty-six people died. The City of Marseille was in a state of unprecedented rebellion, law and order had completely broken down, the rioters armed themselves with iron bars and slings, many carried firearms.
In the better districts of the city mobs attacked residents and burnt their homes and cars, looted shops and wrecked banks. The fire services were either overwhelmed or driven away by the rioters.
Firearms were abundant. Over the years they had poured in from the multiple conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East, arms of all types, hand grenades, automatic rifles, mortars, pistols and even anti-tank grenades and hand held anti-helicopter missiles, readily supplied by criminal arms dealers or Muslim extremists. A Kalashnikov or a M92 could be bought by any small time criminal by the sale of a few grams of cocaine imported from the Middle East through the Balkans.
The President of the Republic ordered the government to declare a state of emergency. The government once again manifested authority’s incapacity to act in any other way than by repression. Reassuring images of emergency aid and assistance were transmitted by an acquiescent media, a truck or plane load of food and blankets, a few high profile political personalities assuring the French that all was under control, followed by images of the fire service and the usual humanitarian and aid associations, displaying their crosses, crescents and stars.
In the meantime food supplies were seriously disrupted, the injured were left to the care of their families, public transport brought to a halt, military road blocks hampered all movement, hospitals were overloaded, offices, banks, shops and factories closed down.
The National Assembly was reconvened from its summer recession for an emergency debate. The pale faced Minister of the Interior, a normally smug superior blonde, expensively dressed, close to the Socialist Prime Minister, who read a declaration the government’s to the assembly, playing down the seriousness of the crisis.
The government and the ruling coalition of France had been too concerned by their narrow own party politics to address the real problems of their country, unaware of the pressures that were building up, ignoring the persistent transport and public services strikes, ignoring the warnings of the police and justice as crime soared.
Madame le Ministre was violently harangued not only by the right, but also the extreme left fractions and the Greens. Papers and files were thrown at the benches of the governing party, fists flew in a tumult not seen in the French Parliament since 1968.
The Prime Minister, Guy Charret, was conspicuous by his absence. He was pinning his hopes on new elections and the presidency. He was typical of the gauche caviar, known for his cigars and his support of certain less than respectable politicians in his party. He counted on the minority vote and the support of women voters. He ensured his popularity by giving foreigners resident of more than five years presence in France voting rights. Then he awarded more than half of the cabinet posts to women, his favourites, including loyal followers such as Madame le Ministre de l’Interieur. As a token to the Neos, the Algerian born son of an Arab settler was appointed Minister of Sport, an ex-football star.
The rebellion in Marseille had taken Charret’s government totally by surprise, especially since they had dedicated so much effort to addressing the needs of the minorities. However, the violent reaction to the rebellion by the public at large was largely due not only to his government, but previous governments, both left and right, and their deliberate refusal to accept the real message from the majority of French voters.
Madame le Ministre was forced into a panic retreat from that afternoon’s session of the National Assembly, under protection of the huissiers as a barrage of insults and cries of ‘Resign’ were hurled at her, after she had attempted in vain to complete her declaration in a shaking voice, announcing that the situation was under control, and trying to place the blame on the opposition for exaggerating the crisis and the National Front for provoking the riots.
A general strike commenced the following day, trains came to a halt, the Parisian Metro came out against the government, the Municipal cleaning services, teachers Unions, civil service organisations, social security services joined them. Students poured onto the streets and the country slowly ground to a halt in an atmosphere of a general uprising.
The far right took advantage of the situation by blaming the Neos, Islamists and the policy of the Socialist coalition government. Any hope that the situation could have been brought under control, as the mob ran out of steam with the arrival of army troops, evaporated with the burning of the Grande Mosque in Paris some days later. The following day all gatherings were forbidden, including Friday prayers in all mosques, and a curfew was imposed in all the major cities of the country.
That did not prevent angry crowds pouring into the streets and rioting broke out with increased fury as the news of the fire in the Grande Mosque spread. In Paris the far right sensing that their moment had come fought running battles with the mobs that had flooded in from the sprawling housing projects that lay in suburban neighbourhoods as the police looked on helpless.
The conservative President of the Republic, Pascal Berat, who had maintained a low profile hoping to win power from the Socialists, in a general election that would be inevitably called, had no choice but to appeal to the Nation.
President Berat was noted on the international scene for his firm stand against terrorism and militant Islamism on the other side of the Mediterranean. His greatest weakness however was his lack of political judgement as regards his fellow citizens. He had lost contact with a France divided between the prosperous classes and the underprivileged generation born of settler parents, a divide increased by the massive flood of recent refugees fleeing the tumultuous upheavals in North Africa and the Near East.
It was crystal clear that France was about to traverse another of the great convulsions that had changed the course of its history over the previous two centuries.
The President demanded the resignation of his Prime
Minister, Guy Charret and his Socialist government, announcing a provisional government of national union, having exceptional powers during the crisis. He then dissolved Parliament and announced elections once the state of emergency could be lifted and law and order had been restored.
The provisional government included Senators and leading figures from all political groups. They immediately stumbled into a trap of their own making, the need for firm political decisions. The proposition from the Communist representative, the acting Employment Minister, called for presidential elections running concurrently with parliamentary elections, according to the system established by the Socialists in 2001.
The right cried it was a political manoeuvre to remove Pascal Berat, various left factions riposted that Berat bore a large part of the responsibility for the crisis and that the country needed a new leader, one unsoiled by the tragic events, one of their own.
Politicians were guided by their own ambitions and backed by sycophants whose values were no better. Europe looked on aghast though not without a certain schadenfreud as the crisis endured. Across the country gangs of extremists attacked Neos, killing and wounding hundreds. They attacked the housing