Abstract
Cathy Lisa Schneider argues that police abuse defines the racial boundaries of democratic citizenship. Using ethnographic methods, she reveals how French police treat black and Arab youth, including those born in France, as if they were a foreign enemy. This practice is a legacy of France’s colonial empire, particularly, colonial rule in Algeria. Despite efforts to reform the police in the 1990s, most black and Arab youth continue to live in segregated neighborhoods virtually occupied by police. Because police are not held accountable when they abuse minority youth, minority youth feel that their lives do not matter in France. It is this that explains the periodic eruption of riots, as well as more deadly incidents of violence in black and Arab neighborhoods in France.
Approximately half of this chapter is taken from various parts of the author’s book: Schneider, Cathy Lisa. 2014. Police Power and Race Riots . Philadelphia, PA: Pennsylvania University Press. Reprinted with permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Amnesty International. 2016. “France: Renewal of State of Emergency Risks Normalizing Exceptional Measures.” Amnesty, December 15. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/12/france-renewal-of-state-of-emergency-risks-normalizing-exceptional-measures/.
Anderson, Perry. 2004. “Union Sucreé.” London Review of Books 18. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n18/perry-anderson/union-sucre.
Begag, Azouz. 2007. Ethnicity in the Balance. Omaha: University of Nebraska Press.
Bennoune, Mahfoud. 1975. “Maghribin Workers in France.” Middle East Research and Information Project Reports 34.
Blanchard, Emmanuel. 2006. “Police Judiciaire et Pratiques d’Exception Pendant la Guerre d’Algéri.” Vingtiéme Siècle: Revue d’Histoire 2: 61–72.
Blanchard, Emmanuel. 2012. “La Goutte d’Or, 30 Juillet 1955: Une Émeute au Coeur de la Métropole Coloniale.” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 5: 98–111.
Blanchard, Emmanuel. 2013. “La Goutte d’Or, 30 July 1955: A Riot in the Heart of the Colonial City.” Les Mots son Importants. http://lmsi.net/La-Goutte-d-Or-30-juillet-1955.
Bonelli, Laurent. 2008. La France a peur. Paris: La Découverte.
Bonelli, Laurent. 2012. “Governing the Police: Political Bargaining and Organizational Outputs in the French Police Reforms (1982–2010).” Presented at the International Political Science Association Annual Conference, Madrid.
Einaudi, Jean Luc. 1991. La bataille de Paris, 17 Octobre 1961. Paris: Seuil.
Einaudi, Jean Luc. 2001. October 1961: Un massacre á Paris. Paris: Librarie Arthéme Fayard.
Ellinas, Antonis A. 2010. The Media and the Far Right in Western Europe: Playing the Nationalist Card. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fassin, Didier. 2013. Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ferrandez, Jacques. 2012. “Algérie 1830–1962, with Jacques Ferrandez.” Exhibition at the Musée de l’Armée, Paris.
Fysh, Peter, and Jim Wolfreys. 2003. The Politics of Racism in France. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gordon, Daniel A. 2000. “World Reactions to the 1961 Pogrom.” University of Sussex Journal of Contemporary History 1: 1–6.
Gourevitch, Philip. 2011. “No Exit: Can Nicolas Sarkozy—And France—Survive the European Crisis?” New Yorker, December 12. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/12/12/111212fa_fact_gourevitch?currentPage=all.
Hargreaves, Alec G. 1995. Immigration, “Race” and Ethnicity in Contemporary France. New York: Routledge.
House, Jim, and Neil MacMaster. 2006. Paris 1961: Algerians, State Terror and Memory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kedward, Rod. 2005. France and the French: A Modern History. Woodstock and New York: Overlook.
Khosokrovar, Farhad. 2015. “The Mill of Muslim Radicalization in France.” The New York Times, January 25. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/opinion/the-mill-of-muslim-radicalism-in-france.html.
McPartland, Ben. 2017. “Why the French Banlieues are Ripe for a Repeat of the 2005 Riots.” The Local, February 14. http://www.thelocal.fr/20151027/france-ripe-for-repeat-of-2005-riots.
Napoli, James J. 1997. “A 1961 Massacre in Paris: When the Media Failed the Test.” Washington Report on the Middle East Affairs 36. http://www.wrmea.org/wrmea-archives/185-washington-report-archives-1994–1999/march-1997/2464-a-1961-massacre-of-algerians-in-paris-when-the-media-failed-the-test-.html.
Peyrefitte, Alain. 1977. Réponse à la violence. Rapport à M. Président de la République présenté par le Comité d’Etudes sur Violence, la Criminalité, et la Délinquance.
Prakash, Amit. 2010. Empire on the Seine: Surveillance, Citizenship, and North African Migrants in Paris (1925–1975). New York: Columbia University Press.
Rosenberg, Clifford. 2006. Policing Paris. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Ross, Kristin. 2002. May ’68 and Its Afterlives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sayad, Abdelmalek. 2004. The Suffering of the Immigrant. London: Polity Press.
Schneider, Cathy Lisa. 2014. Police Power and Race Riots. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press.
Shepard, Todd. 2006. The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Re-making of France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Silverman, Maxim. 1992. Deconstructing the Nation: Immigration, Racism and Citizenship in Modern France. London: Routledge.
Silverstein, Paul A. 2005. “Urban Violence in France.” Middle East Report Online, November. http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/urban-violence-france.
Silverstein, Paul A. 2006. “Postcolonial Urban Apartheid.” Presented at the Social Science Research Council [SSRC] Conference on “Riots in France,” New York City.
Terrio, Susan. 2009. Judging Mohammed: Juvenile Delinquency, Immigration and Exclusion at the Paris Hall of Justice. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Weil, Patrick. 1988. “La Politique Française d’Immigration.” Pouvoirs 47: 45–60.
Weil, Patrick. 2017. “Le projet de loi antiterroriste rappelle le code de l’indigénat.” Le Monde, Septembre 26, 2017. http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2017/09/27/patrick-weil-le-projet-de-loi-antiterroriste-rappelle-le-code-de-l-indigenat_5191957_3232.html.
Zauberman, Renee, and René Lévy. 2003. “Police, Minorities and the French Republican Ideal.” Criminology 41 (1): 1065–100.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schneider, C.L. (2018). Police Abuse and the Racialized Boundaries of Citizenship in France. In: Bonner, M., Seri, G., Kubal, M., Kempa, M. (eds) Police Abuse in Contemporary Democracies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72883-4_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72883-4_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-72882-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-72883-4
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)