French Lawmaker Calls for Imposition of Order
Jacques Myard, conservative member of parliament, talks with Renee Montagne about rioting in his district of Les Yvelines. Myard downplays unemployment as a cause of the rioting and highlights the need for discipline to be imposed.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Those 12 days of rioting have focused attention on the situation of young men of mainly African and Arab descent in France. They face high unemployment rates and are overrepresented in French jails. We called a member of Parliament, who's with President Chirac's conservative ruling party, Jacques Myard, to about rioting in his district just west of Paris.
And, hello.
Mr. JACQUES MYARD (Conservative Member of Parliament): Good morning.
MONTAGNE: Good morning. Describe for us the violence in your district.
Mr. MYARD: Well, unfortunately, in a few towns in my constituency, we had car burnings, and it's been caused by a few groups. It's only a very minority of, let's say, criminal organized men. In fact, I would say that in each town, you have sometimes 30, 40 kids up to 50 who are trying to impose their law in their ghettos, which are, of course, very concentrated. It's a result of those who do not want to integrate and are, you know, living in their own paralyzed society in which they have a subterranean economy on drugs dealing. And this is because the police have started to ...(unintelligible) their own economy where they make a lot of money that the reaction was so tough.
MONTAGNE: Well, obviously, these young men are not all criminals, and most of them have real problems in terms of getting jobs.
Mr. MYARD: No, no, no. This is true that there is a social problem. This is true that in France, unemployment is also hitting, let's say, French-origin men and women. But, in fact, those who attack and those who destroy shops, cars and even nurseries or schools, they are a very minority. They come with, let's say, 50 and then they hit and then they disappear, you know, with cocktail Molotovs. The police have arrested young boys of 12 or 13. This has nothing to do with unemployment. They go to school. Of course, we need social policy. We need to, let's say, integrate them on a more active basis for many of them, but...
MONTAGNE: And how do you--Mr. Myard, how do you propose to do that? Why can't people of north and black African descent find jobs in France? Why is it a 40 percent unemployment rate for these young people, born and raised there?
Mr. MYARD: There is a problem of unemployment in France which is very true. But it is not only those, but it is every French man to that because you know the rate of unemployment is up to 10 percent. So, in fact, we need more growth, and, of course, we need, let's say, to open many jobs to them. So don't confuse things. Paris is not burning, you know. We are not in 1944. And secondly, I'm pretty sure that we can solve the problem, but we have a problem first, which is rioters and those, they have to be sent, and I propose to disciplinary battalion, so that they can be taught what is citizenships. They can learn a job, and they will be physically trained so that, you know, sometimes they raise upwards.
MONTAGNE: Now just--France's biggest Muslim fundamentalist organization, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France, it has issued a religious decree against this violence. What are you, as a conservative member of Parliament, aiming to do to restore order?
Mr. MYARD: Well, I think that there's a lot of things to do because I'm sorry to say it's not a question of religions. I refuse because if we enter this field, then of course, it will be a cultural shock and a cultural and religion shock, and we are in a secular state. So this is the job of the state to, let's say, impose order and security and I don't want to listen to those who send a fatwa saying, `Stop rioting.' That has nothing to do, because if we start to give those people power, let's say, to impose their law through a fatwa, then, of course, France will be ...(unintelligible), we will have a multicultural society, and that's very dangerous. So religions belong to the private part of everyone. It has nothing to do in public affair.
MONTAGNE: Jacques Myard is a conservative member of Parliament who represents Les Eveline(ph), a suburb west of Paris. Thank you very much for joining us.
Mr. MYARD: Thank you.
MONTAGNE: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
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