Can a ‘French November’ spread abroad? Sociologists and annalists are asking this question in the face of this sudden and completely new phenomenon. Particularly, due to its lengthy duration and intense violence, and because the usual reasons (lack of integration, clashes of cultural models etc.,…) have not offered even the semblance of the usual reassuring alibis. In her article, Anna Barducci has mentioned several of these explanations: some are severe, such as the system of integration, (the French way). However, the problem could be spreading and not necessarily circumscribed to a single nation. There is juvenile unrest in France which has reached mass proportions, but it also exists in Italy, albeit on a small gang scale. Every night, these groups, usually not more than 3 or 4 elements, produce the same effects: car burning, damage and assaults. It is reduced only from the numerical point of view and, therefore, less evident. The difference with France is the same which made Carlo Marx prefer the workers to the peasants to make a revolution. The workers were all in one concentrated space, elbow to elbow; where a flu virus or a social rebellion could spread as fast as a sound wave. The peasants, on the other hand, apart from being conservative by nature, were scattered throughout the countryside: they did not constitute a mass. It is only one of the many explanations. Perhaps, the most simply, but also the first which offers a possible indication towards a solution: a more sociably acceptable habitation policy, which avoids ghettos or what Professor Marconi calls, ‘homogeneous spaces’. Because, the modification of the work dynamics, the end of juvenile unemployment, the increase of social securities, could take too much time. And we are told that we just cannot afford a ‘banlieue’ rebellion.


Banlieue in revolt: old violence and new welfare by Pio MARCONI

From the Arab-Moslem intellectuals solutions to the failed integration by Anna BARDUCCI