Young French 'scum' looks to defeat Sarkozy

By Siegfried Mortkowitz Apr 18, 2007, 14:17 GMT

Paris - 'Here everyone is voting against Sarkozy,' Magloire Bena said.

'Here' is the community of Vigneux-sur-Seine, located about 18 kilometres north of Paris, a 'banlieue,' or suburb, with a large immigrant population.

Vigneux-sur-Seine was one of more than 300 communities throughout France shaken by violence when primarily minority youths rampaged for three weeks throughout France in late 2005, burning more than 9,000 cars and hundreds of private and public buildings.

So was the run-down housing estate called the 'Cite of the 4,000,' in the Parisian suburb of La Courneuve, where 20-year-old Sambi and his friends expressed the same fierce hostility toward Nicolas Sarkozy, the candidate for the ruling centre-right UMP party.

'Sarkozy makes me flip,' Sambi said. 'If he is elected, the police will be in power.'

It was in this poor working-class housing estate that, in the summer of 2005, Sarkozy said he would clean up these neighbourhoods 'with a Kaercher,' using the brand name of an industrial high-pressure cleaning machine.

'At the beginning, that just made us laugh. But then we understood that we were just dirt to him,' Sambi's friend Said explained.

Like most of the young residents of France's long-neglected suburban ghettoes, Sambi, Said and his friends have one wish for this presidential election, and they shout it out, in a passionate chorus: 'Anyone but Sarkozy!'

Sarkozy is despised not only for his inflammatory statements, such as the 'Kaercher' comment or his branding the youthful rioters as 'racaille,' or scum, but because in his tenure as interior minister he came to embody the France that these young men feel despises and rejects them.

Unemployment in the poor suburbs averages more than twice that of the rest of the country, or close to 20 per cent. But among the sons of African immigrants under the age of 25, it often reaches 40 per cent.

Studies have shown that job discrimination is rampant in France, with employers often going to extremes to avoid hiring an applicant with an Arabic or African name.

Ironically, Sarkozy has been the only French politician to propose the controversial policy of affirmative action, in which students and job applicants from immigrant families are given priority.

However, because the proposal has been widely criticized and because Sarkozy has been targeting the voters of right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen, he has not mentioned it in the campaign.

He also avoided making campaign stops to any 'banlieue' until last week, after being ridiculed by his opponents, particularly centrist Francois Bayrou. But the visit to the suburb of Villepinte was brief and very carefully prepared and choreographed.

Just as the young of the suburbs have rejected Sarkozy, it appears he has given up on them in his campaign. That might be a mistake, for after the riots, civic associations and celebrities such as the comedian Jamel Debbouze undertook voter registration drives in the poor suburbs that appear to have borne fruit.

In La Courneuve, for example, there were 11.6 per cent more voters registered in 2007 than last year. Other Paris suburbs saw similar increases, such as a 10.7 per cent rise in Clichy-sous-Bois, where the 2005 riots started after the accidental deaths of two minority teenagers being pursued by police.

The question is which of the other candidates will benefit from the anti-Sarkozy sentiment of these angry first-time voters?

Surprisingly, one is Le Pen. Although the enthusiasm for the head of the anti-immigration National Front is limited in the suburbs, a number of minority youths echo the feeling of Farid, another resident of the Cite of the 4,000.

'With Sarkozy, there will be neither liberty, nor equality, nor fraternity,' Farid said. 'I prefer Le Pen. At least he's not a hypocrite. Sarkozy doesn't like Arabs, but he hides it well.'

Le Pen no doubt improved his standing among the young when he made a high-profile visit to the suburb of Argenteuil, visiting the very spot where Sarkozy spoke of ridding the place of 'scum' in October 2005.

Ahmed Hassene, a member of an organization formed in the suburb of Epinay-sur-Seine after the riots, explained the Le Pen vote by saying that the young men 'tell themselves: 'We tried to have a dialogue; that didn't work. We revolted; that didn't work. Now, instead of burning cars, we'll burn the ballot boxes'.'

Royal is expected to benefit the most from the anti-Sarkozy vote, despite little enthusiasm for her or her programme.

Cedric, who lives in Vigneux-sur-Seine and dislikes the Socialists for what he calls their 'pro-Israeli' stance, said he would 'vote Royal to stop Sarkozy.'

His friend Bilal said he would vote for Royal or Bayrou, depending on who had the best chance of beating Sarkozy.

But, as he has done by his dramatic surge during the campaign, Bayrou may yet grab an important share of the votes of these disenfranchised young men.

Officials with civic associations in the suburbs have noticed what they call an 'infatuation' with the head of the UDF party.

According to Mohamed Chirani, of the 'Votez Banlieue' association, 'His anti-system stance pleases here.'

In addition, Chirani said, Bayrou 'is profiting from the fear provoked by Sarkozy's aggressivity and by Royal's gaffes and lack of experience.'