Not so loud s’il-vous-plaît
By V. Leredde
Love and hate between different communities of immigrants in France depend on money and personality characteristics.
France is home to millions of immigrants, the Local France
Every day after work Anna takes her dog and her friend Maria out for a walk. Anna is a young woman of Italian origin who lives in a small flat next to Maria, an old lady from Spain who looks after Anna’s dog when the latter is at work. Life is peaceful in their HLM neighborhood (meaning Low Rent Housing) at the heart of Gardanne, Southeastern France. When Salim gets a flat next to the two women things start to change. Salim likes to challenge others and to trigger anger because as he confesses he wants to punish people who dislike his religion and who make him feel unwelcome. He often listens to traditional Algerian music and religious chants loudly. Anna gets angry especially when she wants to rest after work. Maria shakes her head with sadness and asks Anna to ask calmly Salim to keep the music down. Salim turns down his music but starts to protest. Sylvia, a Polish neighbor, comes out and tries to make Salim agree that he has to respect his neighbors. Issa a young woman of Tunisian origin, tries to make everyone think how important is to not hate each other. Maria who is too old to have any disputes reminds her friends that Salim likes to challenge them and that the best thing to do is to let him do until he gets tired. Anna is desperate. She finally gets close to the local National Front committee and starts to listen carefully to their narrative.
Two years later and following the advice of a Portuguese friend, Anna moves into another suburb. Everything then goes back to normal and Anna stops to listen to the National Front’s speeches. In her new, peaceful neighborhood there is one family of Italian origin, two couples of French, a family of Syrian origin, a single Algerian mother of two and a Spanish couple. Anna gets closer to the couple of Italian origin and to one couple of French. She keeps visiting though her old friends and little by little she goes back to her old narrative about the need of tolerance and avoidance of conflicts. Anna gives English lessons during her spare time. She finds two students among her new neighbors, Samia an Algerian teenager and Miguel a Spanish man. In exchange Samia looks after Anna’s dog when she is at work while Miguel gives Anna Spanish lessons.
“Everyone lives in peace with others here” says Roger a French retiree married to an Italian woman, “everyone except those who want to impose on us their way of life”. Jean-Paul, a French factory manager, confirms that there are many other clichés and prejudices of the same kind and that those who are different or want to be different are not “welcome” by the majority of people. He insists though that this kind of attitude is not only a French issue even if, in his factory, it is mostly French workers that argue with their counterparts of Arab origin, as he confesses.
A poor HLM neighborhood
France is home to millions of Italians, Spaniards, Poles, Jews, Portuguese, Armenians, Algerians, Tunisians, Moroccans, Black Africans, Chinese, Vietnamese and their descendants. They all faced discrimination when they came, some more than others. Things have changed since for the luckiest of their descendants, especially the Europeans ones, who managed to get more educated and wealthier and to be part of the intellectual or economic elites. But the whole transformation of social condition brought change of habits and decrease in the degree of tolerance. The new elites got closer to the French ones and adopted the same attitudes. According to the national newspaper Libération, those attitudes spread from person to person until racial, religious or social strata conflicts erupted. The Europeans against the Arabs, the Africans and the Asians, the Muslims against the Christians and the Jews, the rich against the poor.
Whoever are those who hate and discriminate, in all cases it is anger against the poor, folklore, or envied people, be it Muslims with their street prayers, Roma with their begging tradition, Jews who are heirs of a part of the middle-east troubled history and so on. Anger, fear, jealousy, fatigue and a bit of racism from all the conflicting sides led to an embarrassing situation that comes before us when there are cars that go on fire in poor banlieues or when one listens to the numerous clichés fueled by arrogance and misconception. But why?
The answer comes out when one considers every aspect of the French identity, namely a strong attachment to sophistication in being, speaking, eating, dressing and the refusal to show one’s beliefs which trigger anger and disapproval when at the other side there is simplicity, folklore or strong characters and vice versa says a local philosopher. According to him it would be wrong to suggest though that the French identity is about being opposed to everything that is authentic. The same kind of attitudes around Europe and within immigrants in France show that there are many other identities that clash with their opposites. He suggests then to consider the middle-class identity, the bourgeois identity, or simply the case of singular personalities.
Anna agrees that it is rather circumstances and special cases that trigger conflicts, that those that reject and those who are rejected are special kinds of personalities and that they shouldn’t be considered as the norm. “There are people who like to hate and people who don’t” she says with great relief as she managed to rid herself of the extreme right’s preaching. “I’m a daughter of immigrants myself and I don’t have the right to reject other immigrants” she says thoughtfully. But why in some cases and for some people it is conflict that comes out and not compromise? “French identity is so much sophisticated” she says “but no one here rejects rich people”. No one nowhere seems to reject rich people. Money is a key factor.
The French society seems unable to absorb any more poor people in need of shelter and jobs as since the ‘80s the country suffers high unemployment and very strict urban planning rules that condemn all attempts to extend the cities further. There are currently in France 8 million poor people and 4 million people living in bad housing, in a total of 66 million inhabitants. Tackling poverty and building new housing are very popular themes for next April’s presidential elections.
The Gardanne News 