First death as the ‘ Vermin, scum’ and the man who would be king anarchy spreads
As man who fought to defend his home dies after 11 nights of French riots, violence reaches 300 towns and cities and ministers face growing criticism
THE embattled French Interior Minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, was once asked during an interview if he liked to fantasise about being the President while he shaved every morning. ‘Yes, and not only while I am shaving,’ he boldly replied. The remark perfectly captures the essence of Sarkozy, whose ferocious ambition is matched by the candour of his language.
In a French political class dominated by suffocating convention and duplicity, Sarkozy’s openness has been a breath of fresh air. Allied to his remarkable energy and charisma, his frankness has helped to turn him into one of the most popular politicians in the country, a man who communicates directly with the public in a way that his stiffer, more hidebound colleagues can never manage.
Yet, as France is now gripped by anarchy, Sarkozy’s populist touch seems to have backfired disastrously. A growing army of critics say that his notorious description of the Muslim rioters as ‘scum’ and ‘vermin’ had only fuelled the present outbreak of civil unrest, which is spreading across French cities like a plague.
In a country where 20 per cent of the population votes for the far Right National Front, millions would have privately agreed with his comments. But it was a serious error of judgment for the minister in charge of civic order to lash out so wildly and provocatively. By doing so, he only added to the mood of violent grievance that prevails on the bleak urban estates.
By adopting such extreme rhetoric, Sarkozy has done untold damage to his hopes to become the next French President. This is the goal that has consumed his every waking moment since he first entered politics 30 years ago.
Until recently, his accession to the highest job appeared to be inevitable, as the French warmed to his unique brand of hyper-active determination. Today, however, the success of his candidacy in 2007, when the next Presidential election will be held, looks far more doubtful. The present riots have raised worrying questions about his coolness and authority in the midst of a crisis.
SARKOZY’Srole at the Interior Ministry – the equivalent of the British Home Office – had initially been a success story. He was first appointed to the job by President Jacques Chirac in 2002 and immediately set about challenging the institutional culture of cynical defeatism towards crime and disorder.
He put thousands more police officers on the street, ordered a crackdown on petty crime and tightened up immigration controls. In one highly symbolic move, he averted a lorry drivers’ strike by threatening to
perhaps justified by current revoke their licences, a decision
events – that he is little more than that attracted widespread admiration
a publicity- seeking maverick, a from a public utterly fed-up
politician without a core set of with self- serving industrial action.
principles. Certainly there is Occupying one of the most highprofile
something contradictory about jobs in the country,
his hardline stance today. After Sarkozy soon demonstrated his
all, Sarkozy himself is of an immigrant political gifts. Short, dark-haired, background. with a deep, hoarse voice and
He was born in 1955, the son of a steady gaze, he was not only a
Hungarian aristocrat who fled to dazzling orator but also a firm
Paris from the communist, proadministrator.
Soviet regime after World War Two,
With public approval ratings of
and then married the daughter of over 65 per cent, he was affectionately
an émigré Greek surgeon. nicknamed ‘Speedy Sarko’
It is ironic that Sarkozy himself because of his boundless enthusiasm.
has probably done more to reach In a country where arid
out to the Muslim communities intellectual debate is an integral
than any other government minister: part of the fabric of politics, he has funded the building of Sarkozy was refreshingly free of
mosques and the training of dogma. ‘I don’t care about ideology.
imams, as well as creating an official I do what works,’ he once Islamic representation council. said. Moved to the job of Finance
His immigrant origins also Minister in 2004 (he went back to
helped to fire his burning ambition. the Interior ministry this year) His parents’ marriage was Sarkozy proved equally unconventional.
short-lived and his mother struggled to bring up her three sons on
In place of the usual Gallic
her own. ‘I like the frame of mind attachment to ‘Statism’, he professed
of those who need to build everything his belief in the free market because nothing was given,’ and the need for France to
he has said. abandon its rigidity in employment
Having trained as a lawyer, he policy. ‘He is one of the few
went into centre-Right politics at French politicians for whom business
an early age, becoming mayor of success is not suspect,’ says
the Paris suburb of Neuilly in 1983 the construction magnate Martin
at the youthful age of 28. ‘ I Bouygues. There is, however, a
screwed them all!’ he announced more worrying view of Sarkozy –
with typical aggression on the night of his victory. His climb up the political ladder was helped by Chirac, who treated him as the son he never had. But in the Nineties, the protégé fell out with his master. Politically, Sarkozy refused to support Chirac’s bid for the Presidency in 1995, an act of treachery which meant that the two men did not speak for three years. Even now their relationship is marked by venom and spite.
ONthe private front, Sarkozy – before he was married – conducted an affair with Chirac’s daughter, Claude, a liaison of which Chirac’s wife Bernadette strongly disapproved.
Indeed, Sarkozy’s own tumultuous private life has further contributed to his current problems. In 1990, he married the tall, glamorous fashion model Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz, who had previously been the wife of a French TV star. Like Sarkozy, she was from an immigrant background; her father was a Russian pianist, her mother Spanish. For a while, they were France’s golden political couple, often compared to the Kennedys. But even though Cecilia became her husband’s chief of staff, it was obvious she was not happy with limelight. ‘ I don’t see myself as the First Lady,’ she said. ‘ That bores me. I’m not politically correct. I potter about in jeans, combats and cowboy boots.’
Amid growing tension, the marriage collapsed earlier this year, when Cecilia began an affair with Moroccan- born businessman Richard Attias.
Normally, the French press do not report on the private scandals of politicians. But Sarkozy, uniquely, was regarded as fair game because of the way he had, again, broken with convention and used his image as a family man to boost his political standing, whereas most French politicians keep public and private lives rigorously separate.
In the male- dominated political class in France, having a mistress is almost a badge of virility, but to be publicly cuckolded is a form of humiliation. And, in the wake of the embarrassing breakdown of his marriage, even Sarkozy’s current affair with journalist and author Anne Fulda has failed to restore his self-respect.
At the height of his wife’s affair early in the summer, one of Sarkozy’s colleagues said that he wore ‘ the face of a man who is about to crack up’. He has been destabilised ever since. The Presidency now looks a long way off. RIOTS across France claimed their first life yesterday as the violence spread to more than 300 cities and towns.
Last night there were reports that youths were again taking to the streets for what will be a 12th consecutive night of unrest.
As premier Dominique de Villepin went on national TV to outline how he plans to end the violence, rioters in the southern city of Toulouse set fire to an empty bus then pelted police with Molotov cocktails and rocks.
Mr Villepin said local government officials – prefects – would be given the authority to impose curfews in areas hit by the anarchy.
But he ruled out army intervention and said 9,500 police were being deployed.
‘ Prefects will be able to put in place a curfew if they think it will be useful to permit a return to calm and ensure the protection of residents. That is our number one responsibility,’ Mr Villepin said. On Sunday night there was a frightening escalation in the violence when rioters shot at and wounded police.
Across the country, they also torched more than 1,400 cars in the worst scenes since rioting erupted in the poor suburbs 11 days ago. Nearly 400 arrests were made.
The government faced growing criticism for its inability to stop the trouble, despite massive police deployment and calls for calm.
There were warnings that the unrest could damage investment and tourism in France and there have been demands for tougher action, including sending the army into riot- hit areas. Several towns were planning to bring in overnight curfews.
Disturbances spread to neighbouring Belgium and Germany – on a far smaller scale, but enough to worry authorities that they could develop as they have in France.
One of France’s Muslim organisations, reacting to suggestions that Islamic militants might be orchestrating some of the protests, issued a fatwa against the unrest.
However, poor whites as well as French- born citizens of Arab or African origin are also involved in the violence.
‘Nothing seems to be able to stop the civil war that spreads a bit more every day across the whole country,’ the police officers’ union said. ‘The events we’re living through now are without precedent since the end of the Second World War.’
The first death as a result of the troubles was that of Jean- Jacques Le Chenadec, 61, who was beaten up on Friday in the northern Paris suburb of Stains as he tried to put out a fire outside his home.
He fell into a coma and the interior ministry announced his death from his injuries yesterday.
In the most serious incident on Sunday night, youths at a housing estate in Grigny, south of Paris, ambushed police with rocks, petrol bombs and shotguns.
Two officers were seriously hurt after being hit by shotgun pellets.
‘This is real, serious violence. It’s not like the previous nights. I am very concerned because this is mounting,’ said Bernard Franio, head of police for the Grigny area.
‘Their aim is to get us. It is to kill policemen,’ said an officer who saw the Grigny incident. Hardline inte-
rior minister Nicolas Sarkozy has been criticised for his response to the riots, particularly for describing those involved as ‘scum’.
But a poll gave him a 56 per cent approval rating among French people. And demands by President Jacques Chirac that order be restored before any other measures are taken appeared to endorse him.
The provincial cities of Marseille, Toulouse, Metz and Lille were the worst affected in Sunday night’s chaos.
But few regions have been spared, with riots on Sunday night in the southern towns of Toulon and Draguignan, Strasbourg in the east, and Nantes in the west.
Tourist centres such as the Loire valley town of Blois and Quimper in Brittany were also hit.
Among the targets of the rioters were churches, nursery and primary schools, town halls and police stations, as well as warehouses, car dealerships and a film studio at Asnières outside Paris.
In Rouen, rioters used a car as a battering- ram against a police station.
‘ The shockwave has spread from Paris to the provinces,’ said Michel Gaudin, directorgeneral of the national police.
The unrest has made France confront long- simmering anger in its suburbs, where many Africans and their French-born children face high unemployment and racial discrimination. France, with some five million Muslims, has the largest Islamic population in western Europe.
Rioting started on October 27 with the accidental deaths of two teenagers who, believing police were chasing them, hid in an electrical sub- station in a northern Paris suburb. More than 5,000 cars have been burned and more than 1,000 arrests made since the beginning of the trouble. A leading Muslim group – the Union of Islamic Organisations in France – issued a fatwa or formal instruction urging Muslims not to take part in acts of violence. But is seemed to fall on deaf ears.
Police estimate that a ‘ sizeable majority’ of rioters are young Muslims.
Britain is among a number of countries who have advised tourists to be extremely careful when travelling in France.
Tony Blair said: ‘Everybody is concerned about what is happening and I send every support to the French government.’
The Prime Minister was asked whether he was concerned that similar violence could spread to Britain.
‘You should never be complacent about these things,’ he said. ‘However, I think our situation is in some ways different.’