The immigrant's story

Photo credit: Chareles Platiau/Reuters

My girlfriend works in a school in a poorer area of Lyon in which almost 90% of the children are of immigrant origin. It's a hard job. Violence is never far away and social problems are rife, but the staff does their best to educate their pupils against the odds.
The school recently hired a secretary to the headmistress. She is a young woman of Algerian origin who arrived in France from Algeria not long ago to join her husband, who earns a small salary. She too is on a low salary and they have a young child.

The secretary does her best and has many qualities. She is kind to the children and has earned their respect, she has an agreeable personality, she gets to work on time and she dresses impeccably.

But there's a snag. She was hired on a 'Contract of Insertion', a kind of contract which is destined to integrate immigrants and poorer people into a working environment despite what may be considered as being rather inadequate qualifications and abilities. Her level of French is very poor, she has problems writing from left to right - she was educated to write Algerian Arabic from right to left - she is very bad at taking messages by phone, and she refers to those who do so by saying things like 'an important person called who is called Mme Dupont', when Mme Dupont is just a teacher like everybody else. In other words, she is overawed by it all.

Not only that, she may be good at dealing with children but her social skills with adults are, shall we say, of a finite nature. The regional School Inspector turned up the other day and she welcomed him with a cheerily offhand 'hey hi, how're ya' doin'?' NOT what is expected in a socially rigid country like France, in which hierarchies are rigorously and respectfully respected.

Error after error, gaffe after gaffe, it has got to the point where emails she writes are checked and changed before being sent and in some cases the staff do her work for her. The staff feels for her and tries to help her as much as possible, but it's an uphill (losing?) battle and everyone, including the young woman concerned, knows it.

My girlfriend says that the secretary recently pleaded, begged, her and other staff to try and ensure that the school don't fire her after her trial period. She said that she would do her very best to improve her French and her ways of dealing with people in the context of French culture. My girlfriend answered that she would try to get her enrolled for free French lessons. 

Everyone likes her a lot, but it is as plain as day that she is just not up to the job. Despite that however they are trying to rally round and help her.

The poor girl is petrified of losing her job and ending up on a state pittance for doing nothing to contribute to the country. She wants so much to succeed and she is desperate to do so. But even with the best will in the world of everyone concerned, it is by no means certain that she will still have a job in a few weeks from now.

And if she loses her job? Oh, her husband may well abandon her and her baby because they are a financial liability, and she may well end up living in poverty. 

An awful dilemma this. Not all immigrants want to milk the system, but not all are able to find and keep work either. What can be done about it? That is for the movers and shakers of France to decide.

Meanwhile, her immigrant's story, that of a courageous young woman who wants no more than to earn an honest living, shall remain unheard and unread, except for those who have just taken the time to read this little blog post, parked up as it is, anonymously, in a tiny corner of the Internet........

Dealing with the Roma tragedy in France - an insider's story and an impossible dilemma

A Roma camp near Lyon's St Exupery airport, now dismantled (my photo)

The story got very little press attention at the time, but it deserved much more. It concerns a fire which broke out early in the morning of May 13 in the upper floors of a derelict factory in Lyon, where I live. The fire - the second fatal incident in the building in just three months - claimed the lives of two Roma women and a child. The previous accident had killed a Roma man who was trying to remove a small wooden beam from the roof in order to build a fire and heat the building when the roof collapsed upon him.

These victims and many other Roma had been squatting in the building for several months as a direct result of the French government's policy of destroying Roma camps, thus forcing them to move on and take refuge in whatever shelter they can find. Many of them are forcibly sent back to their countries of origin in charter flights which take off regularly from the airport, and the EU has expressed its strong disapproval of this policy on several occasions, but to no avail.

So much for the news, but what of the story behind it? What are the feelings of those who are charged with dealing with this grim situation, its consequences, and its human cost?

The stark answer to those questions came yesterday evening in the form of an email from a dear friend who works in the French education system and whose job it is to coordinate action to help, if not the adults, at least their children. What this person wrote made my blood run cold.

"At the very moment when new Roma camps are sprouting up everywhere, like flowers in the spring rain, and at a time when we are totally overwhelmed by the phenomenon whilst Roma families are in a living hell, fighting as they are to keep their heads above water and stay alive, my job is to contact them to ask them to bring their children to school. After all, isn't this an opportunity for them to escape their miserable existence? 

But are these parents, who are now in mourning for their loved ones - a sister, a cousin or a mother - who died in a fire, even aware of how important it is to put their young (3-6-year olds) in school? Then again, what possible significance could the concepts of 'scholastic assiduity' and 'socialisation' hold for them, seeing as they spend all their time dealing with life, death, being hunted down, and rejection? These are two worlds, two realities, and they are in conflict. 

I am extremely ill at ease at having to insist on reminding them of French law - to which they are nevertheless subjected - and that we all have to deal with the situation together. But that's my job. [...] In the case of one family, I have to keep 'harassing' them to persuade them to send their oldest child, whose 6th birthday it is today, to school. At 6 years old the law demands that he goes to school and so I had to tell his father that he would be breaking the law if he didn't send him.

I'm only doing all this because I believe that schooling represents an all-too-rare rare opportunity for these children..."

The situation of France's Roma population is dire, the government is treating them like cattle, they are in an impossible position, and things look set to get even worse this summer.

Please spare a thought for the Roma and those who work with them. Thanks.

Bardot threatens to leave France for Russia? Good news and good riddance!

Brigitte Bardot

Wow! Kitty's got claws! Those who follow French news have been lapping up the long-running vaudeville farce of Gérard Depardieu's self-imposed exile to Belgium in order to avoid paying the high tax rates in vigour in France.

They have followed the for-or-against-Depardieu bitchy catfights between other actors of his calibre. By 'his calibre' I mean never talented in the first place, jealous of other actors' success, narcissistic, ludicrously ego-filled and always on the lookout for a quick buck or media hit. They have watched, spellbound, as Depardieu dramatically - as an actor would - announced his application for Russian citizenship as if he were pompously holding up a skull and gravely delivering the line 'to be or not to be...". They have learned all about Depardieu's shady business dealings with countries like Cuba, Columbia and corruption-ridden ex-Soviet satellite states and others. And they woke up yesterday to learn that Putin had finally decided to grant him a Russian passport (why is another matter). This story perfectly sums up why the term 'abject spectacle' was invented. 'Nuff said.

But Depardieu is not the only rich fan of Russia in France, so, ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to French sex starle citizen Brigitte Bardot!

Bardot threatened the French government today that she may soon be following in Depardieu's footsteps by asking to become a Russian citizen. She even said she may go and live there. The reason for that threat can be summed up by this photo, which I took here in Lyon three years ago.

Baby and Nepal

Yup, two elephants. I have seen these two elephants dozens of times in their compound in Lyon's zoo, which is situated in Lyon and France's biggest urban park, the Parc de la Tête d'Or. I go to there not to see the animals but because it's a peaceful place which allows bicycle riders like myself to ride around its wide footpaths and alleyways.

Bardot, like many of the people of Lyon, is quite rightly outraged at Lyon City Hall's decision to have them put down because they are dubiously alleged to have contracted a dangerous animal virus which is also dangerous for humans. She has been at the forefront of efforts to protect animals in France and the world, and her efforts are to be applauded. My position on this issue can be summed up by the angry email I sent two weeks ago to the Mayor in which I said that although I am not a major fan of zoos and as such am not defending the zoo per se, these animals should be reprieved pending further testing as a gesture of ethical fairness and compassion.The elephants' defenders, of which Bardot is by far the best-known, say that the authorities should carry out further tests to be sure of their diagnosis, and I agree with them. City Hall has refused to do so so far however, so as things stand Baby and Nepal are sitting on death row, gloomily awaiting their last meal of grass, leaves twigs and fruit and the stomach-churning visit by a (presumably Buddhist) priest.

But although I admire Bardot's stance on animals it has to be weighed against her stance on human beings. What does she think of people? This is what she thinks of immigrants and homosexuals, although she vehemently denies being either racist or homophobic.

In a book entitled 'Letter to my Lost France' she wrote "my country, France, my homeland, my land is again invaded by an overpopulation of foreigners, especially Muslims." That remark resulted in a 30,000-franc fine, handed down by a French court. She had already been fined for similar offences. Undeterred, she went on to say that Muslim immigration was a "subterranean, dangerous and uncontrolled infiltration...", and other remarks of that nature have led her to be found guilty of inciting racial hatred on several occasions over the years.

Her other target is gays. She compared her gay acquaintances to homosexuals who "jiggle their bottoms, put their little fingers in the air and with their little castrato voices moan about what those ghastly heteros put them through" and said that some contemporary homosexuals behave like "fairground freaks."

In other words, the fact that she votes in elections for the extreme rightwing xenophobic Front National party should come as no more of a surprise than watching the boat sink at the end of  the film 'Titanic'.

Back to the animals she loves, she once had a neighbour's donkey castrated because of its "sexual harassment" of her own donkey, and although that went against the grain she more than made up for that error by saying that a dog which had hideously disfigured a 4-year-old child should be spared from euthanasia and kept alive in good conditions for the rest of its life because it would be hypocritical to execute an animal in a country which had banned the death penalty for human beings.

That is the real Brigitte Bardot.

So if those two elephants are put down without further testing and she carries out her threat to move to Russia my reaction shall be twofold.

I shall be sad that the animals were put down.

And I shall be more than pleased to see the back of her.

Copé's shabby "anti-white racism" jibe

Copé opts for an insincere 'I'm a serious person' pose for the camera.

France has been feverishly debating leading UMP member Jean-François Copé's declaration that "anti-white racism" is a reality in France and that it is to be condemned just as anti-anyone-else racism is to be condemned. His remark was widely believed to target Muslims and blacks as he alleged that anti-white racism was common in 'les cités' - large council housing estates, mostly on the outskirts of French cities, which are heavily populated by Muslims and blacks.

He is right on the face of it of course. Anti-white sentiment does exist within those communities, even if it only concerns a small minority of their members, and I have experienced it myself as have many other white-skinned people. But Copé's declaration is highly misleading as it deliberately implies that whites suffer from the same racism as those of immigrant origin do.

Copé has obviously taken a leaf out of the far-right Front National's official policy handbook, which tries to minimise anti-immigrant racism by saying that it has its equivalent in the form of anti-white racism.

But who has ever heard of a white person who was refused a job interview because of his name or colour? When was a white person ever refused entry to a night club because he was white? Whoever refused to rent an apartment to a white person on grounds of racial origin? And I have never heard of houseowners refusing to sell their property to white people either. How many white people get stopped and searched by the police?

France has a population of around 6 million  immigrant-origin inhabitants - both legal and illegal - representing just under 10% of the total population. But they are almost non-existent in the French parliament, in boardrooms and management, in banks and finance, and they are highly unlikely to be found in the upper ranks of the police, the legal profession and many more.

The plain fact is that these population groups are far more likely to be poor and unemployed, or in badly-paid jobs, and many of them live in poor quality housing. Yet successive governments of both the right and left have done little to tackle anti-immigrant sentiment, let alone the endemic anti-immigrant discrimination which exists in many sections of French society and bars immigrants from many jobs and opportunities.

Jean-François Copé is a highly experienced politician, having served as a government spokesman under Jean-Pierre Raffarin and others before going on to do a stint as Budget minister and being the UMP's parliamentary spokesman. As such, he must have known that his slanted statement would make the headlines.

Most senior members of the UMP have, however, been very circumspect when asked for comment, and none has given him a clear thumbs-up, indicating that they consider that supporting Copé would lose them support amongst rank-and-file UMP members who shall shortly be asked to vote for their next president. The candidates are François Fillon and Copé himself, but his ill-advised anti-white racism comment may well turn out to be the nail that closed the coffin on any hopes he may have had of winning.

I think Copé seriously miscalulated the effect that his words would have on his near-term political future. All his declaration has done is to move his wing of the UMP further towards the extreme right, inflame public sentiment and throw oil on the fire of France's racial tensions. He shall surely, and quite deservedly, be made to pay for it.

Brussels, sexual harrassment, and the 'R' word

The Belgian press has been feverishly analysing the content and wider implications of a video which shows a young woman with a hidden camera walking through the streets of Anneessens, a well known quarter of Brussels. She is filming and recording the number of men who sexually harrass her or who 'offer' to take her to their homes or hotels. It makes for rather depressing watching.

"Bitch", "slag", "nice little ass that", "Wanna have a drink with me? Hotel, bed, you know, let's get straight down to it." She says she has to listen to this kind of thing 5-10 times in an afternoon, which is what she did in the film, called 'Femme de la Rue.'

The young film-maker is Belgian cinema student Sophie Peeters, and she decided to make the film, which is to be screened in Belgian cinemas this evening, after having been disgreeably surprised by the number of times she has been propositioned or insulted in public since moving to Brussels. She also discovered that there are several women's associations in Brussels which are fighting to get the problem recognised by the authorities and dealt with.

But there's a problem, because Anneessens happens to have a dense population of immigrant origin, and this is plain to see when identifying who is harrassing her. So why did she film there? Didn't she know it may lead to a scandal? She answers those questions in an interview in which she says that she filmed there quite simply because that is where she lives, and was conscious of the fact that she had to tread a fine line between documenting facts and implying a racial connotation. Although Peeters readily declares that about 90% of those who harrass her are of foreign origin, she insists that they are just a tiny minority of the immigrant population in Anneessens, but she adds that, "I'd like women to realise if that happens to them, they are not alone. I also want to open this debate up because a lot of people are frightened to talk about it for fear of being labelled as 'racists'."

Support for her film has not been lacking in Belgium, and nor has criticism, and it was only inevitable that the French press would quickly become interested in the story. The first article I read in the French press included the astounding tweet statement by French Media journalist Mathieu Géniole in which he declared that "It must be said concerning the Belgian girl insulted in the street that I have never seen a woman complaining about the same kind of treatment in France."

Needless to say he quite deservedly received hundreds of furious tweets from French women who just couldn't believe their eyes. He wrote an article to try and explain himself, but she shouldn't have bothered because it's a mealy-mouthed effort which, if it proves anything, proves that he seems never to have set foot in a street in France in his life. Or maybe it's because he is blind and he wears an i-Pod permanently. His ingenious spiel is that "I am only just now discovering the existence of this kind of aggression."

I have witnessed hundreds of examples of this kind of behaviour in France over the years and I see more every day if I find myself in some particular parts of town or in large shopping centres, where it is common. Also, the vast majority of French women I have met complain about it more or less, depending on how much time they spend outside or in bars, where single women are often the victims of harrassment to a greater or lesser degree.

And they majoritarily allege that the majority of the harrassers are of foreign origin. A particularly frightening variation involves young men in cars driving around late at night and following women drivers. A friend of mine tells me that the only way she got one car off her tail was by stopping at a police station.

French feminist group Osez le Féminisme unsurprisingly agrees that the phenomenon exists, and that it is widespread in France, although they are more ready to help calm things down than are their Belgian counterparts by correctly pointing out that not all propositions constitute harrassment.

One theme I have often heard from women here is that although harrassment in the street is a majoritarily immigrant 'speciality', it's another story when it comes to the workplace, where many of those in higher positions are of what could be loosely-termed as white French origin. Sexual harrassment in that context is said to be a mainly white French affair, and I have rarely heard of men of immigrant origin harrassing women at work.

Why is that? And why can't these issues be discussed openly? And what exactly could be done about them, if anything? What constitues harrassment and what is 'socially acceptable' behavior when it comes to the age-old art of trying to seduce women? There are so many questions which need to be addressed, but it's as if the majority of French society, from politicians to the police and including many ordinary people, are desperately trying to avoid having to tackle delicate subjects such as this one, whose existence is undeniably real.

This film is more than welcome because it shines a spotlight upon one of France's best-known dirty little secrets, that of the extent of the systematic sexual harrassment of women in public, whoever is responsible for it. Will it lead to change? Should it be treated as a general phenomena or are the characteristics of harrassment in the street and in the workplace different enough to warrant them being studied as phenomena in their own right? But don't hold you're breath whilst waiting for answers, because it isn't going to happen in official French circles and government, where draconian secular principles often exclude dealing with specific phenomena involving specific racial-ethnic-religious groups of the population, particularly if they are of a sensitive nature.

What's that expression about brushes, sweeping and the underneath of carpets?