This weekend I was in Paris to witness the uprising on a hot Saturday night, the new fall of the Bastille. I heard the cry from the suburbs reach across the entire city to burn its intellectual ears. Distant shouting. Distant rioting. I was there, a writer witnessing Paris put a ring of steel around itself, to seal the republic from it own children whose voices it no longer wanted to hear, the voices of Clichy-Sur-Bois, Saint Dennis, its own fourth, fifth generation North African, pre-revolutionary, pre-republican, disaffected children, alienated in their crumbling, gutted, tower blocks that belch smoke on the perimeter. Not that the republic hasn’t poured money into jobs, housing, education, culture. It has, but a job is nothing if your descent prevents you from getting on in one generation. But is it so bad for sons to have ambition?

Paris’s intellectual ears burned that November night in the same way they burned with revolutionary zeal in ‘68. I was there like so many other writers before me, Hemingway, Simone De Beauvoir, Joyce. With me, they listened in the cafes of the Marais, in St Germain-du-Pre, the artists, the poets, the bookish society gliterati. The Eiffel tower’s lighthouse laser beam scanned Paris like a radar searching us out, our thought. Pure intellect reached up into the smoke and met the voices saying, ‘We are here, we are here’. But still the sirens wailed, and the shouting increased. We heard what the shouting meant, and we said to le musalman, it is not about the brulee, it’s about the crème under the brulee. Discard your flaming poubelle, and pick up your red hot Sartre. Join us in Le Café Fleur, Le Café Magon. Francais can cast aside its new bourgeois with intellectual might, and fill its palaces with post-impressionist art, and a new Mona Lisa of not so obvious European descent. You exist in the Islamic quatrefoils of the San Chapelle. You are Paris. Paris needs you. I was there. I have my slightly damaged Eurostar ticket to prove it. And now, I’m back in Londres where they just don’t do that sort of thing. The suburbs are one seething, vibrant mass of third way revellers shaking each others hands, for they are not able to believe their good fortune in making it through the smoke, and through the tunnel into this utopia called Hayes and Harlington.

Ian Duncan Smith, London, 15th November 2005

Ian, I enjoyed (?) reading this. I have been talking to lots of different people about this and the TV is flooded with it - it's a very complex issue and even when the burning stops (only (!) 200+ cars destroyed last night), I think the whole thing will only be smouldering, ready to flare up at the slightest spark. The presidential elections are coming up in 2007 and I have a feeling the baunlieues will be milked for all they're worth.

Your version is very passionate, romantic almost - Paris seems to have that effect

Elspeth

Thank you Elspeth. It was pure coincidence that I was there, but I was brave. I don't believe what I'm told on TV. First hand experience is best.
Ian

Ian,

To say that they don't do that sort of thing in London is nonsense. We have had riots, killings and widespread damage to property. Have you forgotten Broadwater Farm Estate where PC Blakelock was murdered? There have been very serious riots in Burnley, Bradford, Oldham and other places in England.

Paris is not alone in her troubles; we have seen similar incidents in almost every European Country. Unfortunately we shall see far more of such disturbances in the future and there are many reasons for this.

Len






<Added>

In 1966 The United Nations issued a document under the title of 'International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination'.

It seems to me that the ONLY section of humanity that has adhered to this are the Islamic Fundamentalists... they don't care if they bomb and kill ANYONE of any colour, race, religion or age, including Members of the Islamic Faith.