By Agnès Catherine Poirier, journalist on the French daily newspaper Libération (THE GUARDIAN, 09/11/05):
When, on Monday evening - the 12th day of the unprecedented wave of violence which has spread throughout France - the French prime minister Dominique de Villepin addressed the nation, he was careful not to say the word.
However, President Chirac and his government yesterday passed a decree giving full powers to the prefects of France to implement curfews wherever they deem it necessary. For the first time in 44 years, the political power in France feels compelled to use the act of April 3 1955, thus declaring a state of emergency, l'état d'urgence. This law was used by General de Gaulle, in 1961, to restore order in Algeria and Paris, where at least 200 French Algerians were shot dead by police.
We were at war then. So are we at war today? The rioters clearly are. Or feel they are. They are at war against a political class, an elite and, perhaps, French society as a whole - which, they say, hasn't listened to their call for help. They feel treated like lesser citizens. For at least 20 years, French politicians have failed to address simple questions about education, immigration and security. We are now paying the price.
Rioters first vented their anger by burning cars. They then attacked symbols of the state: schools, libraries, buses and post offices. From the suburbs of Paris, the anger spread rapidly to almost 300 cities and towns.
No one expected the sheer rage the rioters showed, even in a country used to outbursts of violence. Violence, for the French, is a tradition, almost a rite of passage for every generation. Direct confrontation with the authorities is considered as much a national institution as the Académie Française. It is also seen as a legitimate political form of expression. But these rioters are not politicised, they they want to burn the whole house down.
Some commentators, especially across the Channel or the Atlantic, think the response is self-evident: the Republican model has failed. Intégration à la Française doesn't work. France's grands mots - liberté, égalité, fraternité - are hot air; racial discrimination is the fundamental problem. France must be blind not to see its 6 million Muslims suffer from endemic racism every day.
Those critics are right - but only in part. What do we see when we look at the "burning suburbs"? Dissatisfied youth with little education, hardly any job prospects, from poor and often broken families. Their misery is first of all social and economic. They are white, black, "beurs" (second- and third-generation north African migrants); they are from Muslim, Christian and secular backgrounds. They are the French people who feel they are not represented by any political party, and especially not by the French left. And this is more dangerous than any ethnic minority riot - it constitutes a revolutionary ferment.
This takes us back to 2002 when the socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin was defeated by the fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of presidential elections, leaving the French to choose between Le Pen and Chirac. The rioters don't know who to turn to. But what they want is more Republic, more égalité, more liberté and more fraternité. Not less. And they want it now.
The question we should be asking is not: has the republic failed, but has it been failed by a mediocre and opportunist elite? An elite which has traduced, corrupted and betrayed the principles by which the world judges France and France judges itself.
The April 3 1955 Act stipulates that a state of emergency law can only be implemented for 12 days. After 12 nights of violence, the French have 12 days to ask themselves fundamental questions about their state. It would be nice to think that De Villepin's reluctance to mention the dreaded words état d'urgence is because he knows that the emergency applies to France's leaders as much as it does to the rioters of Clichy-sous-Bois.