Burned cars, broken windows, looted businesses and threatened elected officials. In one week, France has fallen into another world, that of shame. Shame in the face of these unacceptable acts but also in the face of the reactions of a part of the political class which justifies the unjustifiable, excuses the inexcusable for the sole purpose of not naming what it has been trying to keep quiet for years : the abandonment of the concept of authority. While 9 out of 10 French people condemn the violence, the far left has sometimes preferred to minimize the violence (“neighborhood shopkeepers understand the anger of young people” sic), sometimes justify it by “poverty” or by “a feeling of relegation “. Once again, therefore, the Republic is the designated culprit.
However, I can testify knowingly, that the Republic does not have to apologize as what it does for our sensitive neighborhoods has been remarkable for the past twenty years. France has deployed considerable means so that none of its children have this feeling. It is the most generous country in the western world. Both education and health care are provided free of charge. Many devices exist to help people in precarious situations. Families are supported in the education of their children and are helped financially to meet their needs.
In difficult neighborhoods in particular, a considerable effort has been made since 2005: massive investments in urban renewal to replace towers with buildings on a human scale, creation of sports and cultural infrastructures, new public facilities such as schools or town halls annexes, establishment of free zones, new lines of public transport, tireless mobilization of educators, associations, elected officials. This collective work has enabled many neighborhoods to change their face, to instil more social diversity, to allow the installation of local shops and public services and we should be proud of that.
The tragic events of last week made it possible to break a taboo, an unspoken skillfully maintained by the far left for electoral purposes. If part of the Republican contract is not fulfilled, it is primarily because of a minority of families. And the only fault of the State is to have seriously neglected the importance of authority and sanction, essential corollaries of the public generosity that should have been imposed on those who, whatever their origin and their date of arrival in France, let their children behave like thugs. Worse, some were complicit, as the videos showed, in their looting. The excessively young age of the rioters must call for collective awareness of a reality that mayors have been denouncing for years. If part of the youth of the neighborhoods has been abandoned, it is not by the Republic but by their parents. A situation that is all the more serious and worrying in that it appears to be an original sin. Parental abandonment is, in fact, the first step in a total dilution of the notion of authority that continues throughout adolescence. It is the price of this gearing and multiple renunciations that we are paying today. Renunciation of authority at school, that exercised by teachers who have become targets, obliged – a shame! – to justify themselves to the students and their parents. That of the police, of course, who every morning is accused of either racism or violence. Finally, that of the mayors, some of whom have suffered monstrous attacks.
This is what condemns our republican pact to disintegration. It is high time to send these parents a strong public message on the duties that accompany their rights: that of educating their children with respect for others and with respect for the republican order. Sanctions of course for wrongdoing but above all prevention and empowerment. However, to be effective, a new law is needed, taking up point by point what I have just mentioned. To be drafted now for adoption in October by ordinance. The indignant French demand it. Emmanuel Macron consults? Marine Le Pen is biding her time? At least everyone will have been warned.