France

A new rise of Islamophobia and antisemitism in France

We have the impression that xenophobia is on the rise in France, and that this xenophobia targets particularly the Muslims. What does that mean in practice? Verbal or physical attacks on the street? Bullying of Muslim colleagues at work? Muslim pupils in schools? Who is mobilising for this xenophobia - who are its agents? Like the majority of French Arab-Muslims, I use the term Islamophobia because what we are experiencing is much more complex than just racism. For example, people who have converted to Islam are subject to an extreme violence that cannot simply be attributed to the fact that...

Hamas: a “black hole” for the French and international “left”?

Published on Ni patrie ni frontières by Yves Coleman on 26th October 2023 . Pic: Logo of Hamas. As far as Hamas is concerned, it seems to me that there are, roughly speaking, 5 competing interpretations: 1) Those who think that Hamas is an original national liberation movement, with a secondary religious component, and which must be an interlocutor in the negotiations with Israël. The former Trotskyist leader Edwy Plenel (now the director of “ Mediapart ”, an online left-wing “independent newspaper,” with 200,000 subscribers) explains, at the same time 1 , that Hamas is generously financed by...

“Red lines” for the French “anti-Zionist” left?

A screenshot of a video critiqued in this article The expression "red line" was used twice by the left-wing journalist Dominique Vidal 1 , in a program on "Le Média" (a TV channel linked to the "La France Insoumise", a left-wing national-populist movement) entitled "ISRAEL-PALESTINE: HOW DID WE GET THERE? 2 " and in a program on "Regards" (a YouTube channel and publication linked to the French CP) entitled "Israel-Palestine: "Inhumanity and war crimes are red lines 3 ". Journalists and commentators obviously have to take into account the difficulty of knowing, today 10 October, the exact scale...

France: cops and courts on a rampage

Since 27 June, France has seen waves of protests and rioting following the police killing of 17 year-old Nahel Merzouk during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Over 1,300 people have been arrested, over 700 police officers have been injured, and many schools, shops, police stations, town halls and other buildings have been set on fire, not to mention many cars. For over a week, many workers have been unable to get to work as public transport has been disrupted. The unrest was a response to France’s murderously racist and out-of-control police force. On 29 June, a protest march...

The gleaners and society

Gleaning is the ancient practice of going into a field after the harvest and picking up any fruit, cereal or root crops left behind. Its most famous representation is the painting by Jean-Francois Millet, “The Gleaners”, which he completed in 1857. What the painting represented was “updated”, as it were, by French director Agnès Varda in 2000 with her documentary The Gleaners and I . Shot in various locations in France, including the suburbs of Paris, film shows modern day gleaners doing very much what their ancestors have done for hundreds of years. They explain in their own words why they do...

France: against the police who kill!

At 8am on Tuesday 27 June, two police officers shot a 17-year-old man dead at the wheel of his car in Nanterre. In a video posted on social media, two police officers on motorbikes are heard ordering the driver to open the car door, one of them holding a gun to the driver’s head and shouting: “Open up or I’ll put a bullet in your head!” We then see the car move forward and the policeman shoots the young man at point-blank range, even though the vehicle wasn’t moving towards him or endangering him. Once again, the police have killed a young person of North African origin in the French banlieue...

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