French politicians shine at passing the buck over Paris football riots

If you've been following the news this week, then you've probably seen the "celebrations that turned sour" when violence broke out on the streets of Paris as the city's football team Paris-Saint-Germain and its fans marked the club's first league title in 19 years.

The contrast couldn't have been greater to similar parades organised in England and Spain for their championship-winning teams Manchester United and Barcelona.

And although not all was apparently as calm in Manchester as perhaps the French media portrayed it, the scenes were nothing to match those that occurred in Paris.

It was well documented because so many French media outlets had teams "on the ground" reporting "en direct" almost as though they were willing, or at least expecting, something to happen.

And as we all know, it did.



But while the French media was pretty thorough in covering the whole debacle as it happened, it hasn't had as much success persuading the country's politicians to take their part of the blame for what happened.

Manuel Valls (screenshot from TF1 news)

The interior minister, Manuel Valls, appeared on radio and television, "condemning the violence" (well, he's hardly going to praise it now, is he?) and saying it showed that football, and in particular in the capital, was "ill".

And when asked by the mild-mannered and inoffensive anchor Gilles Bouleau on Tuesday's edition of TF1's evening news whether he, as minister in charge of the "forces of law and order" was willing to take his share of the responsibility for what had happened just as Frédéric Thiriez, the president of the French league Frédéric Thiriez had done, Valls delivered a sermon befitting of a politician eager to pass the buck.

"There were enough police present," he insisted, refusing to accept any blame even though viewers had just seen footage of riot police abandoning their positions when some of the worst scenes of violence broke out and deciding not to intervene when a coach carrying tourists was attacked.

"It was a minority of vandals intent on causing trouble who set others off," he maintained.

"There's violence in our society and there were those present who didn't just want to spoil the celebrations. They were there to fight, to steal and to vandalise."



Faced with a politician "singing" from such a well-prepared hymn sheet, Bouleau clearly had no chance of gaining even the slightest admission of accountability.

Mind you, the team on "La Matinale" on Canal + fared no better the following morning with the sports minister Valérie Fourneyron, even though collectively they were certainly more pugnacious in their questioning - or at least they tried to be.

Fourneyron refused point blank to respond directly to sports journalist Sylvère-Henry Cissé when he said it was hard to believe that "nobody could have anticipated trouble" (and thereby implying politicians had some part to play in what happened) given the number of pre-celebration preparations that had taken place.

"Those responsible for what happened were the vandals themselves who transformed the celebrations into a riot," she said, trotting out exactly the same "explanation" as Valls had done the previous evening and talking over Cissé's attempts to get her admit at least partial responsibility.

Instead Fourneyron preferred to repeat (from nine minutes and 24 seconds in the video below) that the "celebrations had been spoilt" and the penalties for those who had been arrested would have to be harsh.

Yes, it really was just like watching and hearing Valls II.

As the show's host Ariane Massenet summed it up, for Fourneyron (and by extension Valls and the government) what had happened was solely the fault of those vandals who had caused the violence. End of story.

La Matinale du 15/05 - Partie 1

Friday's French music break - Indochine, "College boy"

This week's Friday's French music break has been chosen not so much for the quality of the song - you can be the judge of what you think about that - but more for the controversy surrounding the accompanying video.

It's "College boy" the latest release from one of France's most successful rock bands, "Indochine".

In essence, the song is about the bullying experienced by a schoolboy realising that to be accepted by his peer group will be an uphill struggle, to say the least.

But the video, filmed in black and white and shot by young Canadian director, Xavier Nolan, deliberately uses violence and relies on certain clichés to get its message across.

And therein lies the heart of the controversy.

(screenshot from "College boy" video)

Writing in Nouvel Observateur, François Jost describes what happens in the video.

"The victim of bullying is a boy coming to terms with his sexuality," he writes.

"He becomes the scapegoat, is tortured by some of his classmates, spat and urinated on while others 'watch with their eyes bound'," continues Jost.

"Finally he's crucified: two bullets through the body."

While Jost insists the video is no worse (and no better) than some US films which portray violence for its own sake and that it in fact depicts to an extent a reality which exists (he gives the example of the behaviour by some in France during the recent demonstrations against same-sex marriage), others have been more critical.

"The video is simple 'trash'," says editor-in-chief for culture at Le Figaro, François Aubel.

"From the paper balls thrown at the boy by his classmates through a whole series of images until his death...even though Indochine insist they're not looking to create a scandal, the whole thing smacks of being a marketing ploy," he added, pointing out that the group will embark on a sell-out tour in the Autumn and will also play Stade de France (one of the few French acts capable of filling it) next year.

Former education minister, Luc Chatel, is none too impressed either.

"Imagine a crucifixion, imagine a murder filmed at the heart of a school. That's not acceptable," he said on national radio when asked about his reaction to the video.

"I'm not certain that the extreme violence of some of the images is the appropriate response to the issue of bullying and harassment," he added.

The Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA), the regulatory body for the media in France, is still determining whether the video is suitable for broadcast on either television or on the Net in this country, so for the moment the full version is unavailable, unless you happen to live in Canada, where it was shot.



On Le Figaro's site though you can see so-called "soft" edited portions of the video - if you really feel so inclined.

Even those images don't make easy viewing.

Maybe though, the last word on the video should be left to the group's front man, Nicola Sirkis.

"We're not looking to be censored or to create a scandal," he says.


"We just wanted to address a problem that exists.  When it's possible for a person to buy weapons on the Internet and then turn them against innocent people, it's time for some urgent and serious political thinking."

Even less "loving thy neighbour" in rural France

It was a story that first appeared here last month involving a young farmer, Jean-Hugues Bourgeois, and the campaign of violence and intimidation that had been launched against him by others from within the local community.

The setting is the farm on which he raises goats to produce organic cheese in the hamlet of La Boge, which forms part of the village of Teilhet (population 300) in the Auvergne region of France.

The hope in September - certainly from Bourgeois' point of view when he contacted the media - was that increased interest in his plight through national coverage and the launch of a police investigation would see a quick and peaceful resolution to a situation that was threatening to spiral out of control.

Sadly that has not turned out to be the case, and at the weekend a 250m2 barn on the property he farms was raised to the ground, destroying all the hay and grain for his animals as well as a tractor.

As Bourgeois told the media last month, his problems started in March this year, when a local farmer who had befriended the "newcomer" and was close to retirement, offered him the chance to rent an extra 50 hectares of prime land to expand the business.

"Things started to take a turn for the worse when I was given the chance to rent a little more land than perhaps someone who was an outsider and something of a 'marginal' might ordinarily have had," he told TF1 news in September.

That interview - and many others Bourgeois gave - came after several months during which part of his herd of goats had been shot, graffiti had been daubed on his house, tyres had been punctured, fires had been set in outbuildings causing loss of animal feed and finally an anonymous rape and death threat had been made against his wife and eight-year-old daughter.

Bourgeois took his plight directly to the media, mainly because he felt his case wasn't being taken seriously by either the local mayor or the police.

And indeed national coverage led to the opening of an official investigation.

But that didn't prevent this latest incident from happening. And Bourgeois, who is now reluctant to go into detail about what he thinks were the causes of the fire or give interviews, feels that there is a connection between what happened over the weekend and his earlier decision to speak out.

"I'm paying a high price for having broken the code of silence," he told the national daily Le Parisien.

"I've been advised not to say any more," he added.

The 29-year-old might not be willing to say anything, but at least some of his neighbours now appear more inclined to talk.

"He's a brave man," one of them told the newspaper. "To put up with all that has happened and to stay is amazing.

"We're all convinced that this latest fire was not an accident."

But the theory that this most recent incident is linked to the previous ones, or that a member of the local farming community might be behind the attacks and threats, is still not one the mayor of Teilhut, Bernard Duverger, is ready to endorse.

He's insists on urging restraint before jumping to conclusions.

Last month, before the police started their investigations Duverger said that although he condemned the actions that had been taken against Bourgeois and he had undoubtedly been a "victim", there was nothing to prove that the culprit had been one of the other local farmers.

And Duverger offered much the same sort of advice in Monday's Le Figaro.

"If it's accidental it's an unfortunate coincidence. If it's a criminal then it's part of a relentless campaign against him and his family," he said.

"Until we know how this fire was started, we need to remain calm."

Much the same response has come from Pascal Palayer, a spokesman from the regional police as a forensics team sent the farm to pick through the ashes.

"It's another element in the case," Palayer confirmed. "But we have to be careful about making accusations, and about the theory of criminal intent."

Bourgeois still insists - just as he did one month ago - that he intends to stay put. But he also admits that he hasn't been able to sleep since the latest incident.

Teacher left bloodied and bruised as pupil hits out

There has been a heated debate in the media here in France over the past few days over behaviour in the classroom and in particular the problems of discipline following an incident last week in which a teacher was hit by one of her pupils.

But this was not in a secondary school as you might at first imagine, but in a primary school.

The child was just 10 years old, had a history of behavioural problems and was also receiving special supervision.

It happened towards the end of lessons last Friday at the Jean-Jaurès de Persan primary school in a suburb of Paris.

When the teacher reportedly somehow "caught the boys fingers by mistake in a radiator," he suddenly became uncontrollable and in front of the rest of his classmates punched her and then started kicking her.

Some of the other children rushed out to look for help and returned to find the desks upturned and their teacher with a bloody nose.

She was left bruised and in shock, but not in need of hospital treatment, and has taken sick leave for this week.

In the meantime she has filed a complaint with the police, who on Tuesday interviewed the boy in the presence of his parents.

While the education minister, Xavier Darcos, has issued a statement offering his support to the teacher and saying that this sort of thing shouldn't happen, the head teacher said that the school still had a responsibility to teach the boy.

Education minister, Xavier Darcos

(© David Mendiboure - Service photo de Matignon)

He cannot be suspended, excluded or expelled she told the press. Regulations don't allow any of those options. "It's our role as a public service to provide the child with a suitable education," she is quoted as saying.

That's a view backed up by Simone Christin, an inspector for the local education authority who visited the school on Monday to talk to teachers and children alike.

"It was an isolated incident," she said afterwards. "One involving a child who was known to have behavioural problems and has for a period of time been monitored and received special assisted supervision."

In spite of the obligation the school and local education authority might have, it didn't seem of much comfort to mothers and fathers as they gathered in front of the gates on Monday afternoon to collect their children.

Emotions were understandably still running high and there was a banner hanging at the entrance as television cameras were there to capture the reactions of some of the parents.

"My daughter was talking about it throughout the whole of the weekend, said one mother.

"When I collected my son after lessons last Friday he was in tears," said another. "He didn't want to return to school this morning" said another.

The local public prosecutor Marie-Thérèse de Givry insisted that whatever the outcome of police investigations there would be no criminal proceedings brought against the boy as he is younger than 13.

She suggested that he would probably have a psychiatric evaluation to determine what sort of extra needs he might need within the education system.

Since the incident the boy has yet to return to regular lessons. When he does, it will not be with the rest of this class but initially at least on a one-to-one basis.