News analysis: Alleged police brutality case brings chronic French suburb issues back to spotlight

The saga over the alleged rape of a youth by police officers in the French suburbs has brought to light that the situation in certain sensitive zones has changed little since riots over police violence in 2005.

Social inequality is being viewed as the main cause for friction between certain residents and the police.

Experts highlighted significant problems faced by people living in these neighborhoods, known as sensitive urban zones (ZUS), over the last 30 years in terms of employment, safety, education and housing.

"The problems date back to the 1980s," pointed out by Laurent Mucchielli, director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), a specialist in delinquency and security policy.

Public policy attempting to address education happened early, with the creation of the priority education zones (ZEP) in 1981.

The policy aimed to reduce inequalities through increased investment into education in these zones.

But this measure was proved as counter-intuitive.

"However, according to latest official reports of the Court of Accounts, a Parisian student earns 47 percent more than a student from Versailles or Creteil where many ZEPs are found," said Fanny Anor, a researcher at the Montaigne Institute, specialized in education and national security.

"The most experienced teachers flee sensitive neighborhoods," she added.

School holds an important role for students in sensitive neighborhoods.

According to a study in 2011 by the Montaigne Institute, six out of 10 students do not finish high school in districts such as Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil in Seine-Saint-Denis, where riots took place in 2005.

Some 40 percent of of ZUS residents under 30 were unemployed in 2015, compared with 25 percent in the rest of France. Furthermore, 38 percent of the population of these zones live below the poverty line, compared with 12.2 percent of the total French population.

"A sprinkling of public funds that reduces the problems but resolves none of them," Mucchielli pointed out.

"There is incapacity on behalf of political leaders to, on the one hand, reduce unemployment and on the other hand reform the police," he said.

Social programs put in place by elected officials are often interesting "but always insufficient on the budgetary level," noted the sociologist.

In addition, poor neighborhoods are "politically isolated," said Mucchielli.

"On the local level, we observe residents almost no longer vote. On the national level, practically no form of political representation exists. Everyone talks about them, but they never speak," he said.

Safety is another indicator of inequality. One in four inhabitants of the ZUS say they didn't feel safe, compared with 14 percent of the French population overall, according to figures published by the Montaigne Institute in 2015.

Asked about the comparisons between the riots of 2005 and those following the Theo police allegations, Anor said there existed "strong links" between the two events.

"The instigating element of the events of 2005, as with the Theo case, is alleged police brutality. Another common point is the confrontation between the youth who live in these neighborhoods and the police," she said.

The ongoing hostility underlines the importance of managing relations between youth in the ZUS and the police working in hostile environments.

Mucchielli says French society has a lot of difficulty "to accept its multiracial and partially multicultural reality."

"Non-white" people are often subject to discrimination, he told Xinhua, and the police have "practically not evolved since the 1980s."

"The police train these youths in intervention techniques and legal procedure, but not in dialogue and mediation, even though the vocation of the public police officer is first and foremost about relations," he added.

The neighborhood police (police de proximite) program was an attempt by authorities to reinitiate contact between residents and police officers in these neighborhoods. Created in 1998, under then prime minister Jacques Chirac, it had the objective of "allowing police officers to patrol in the neighborhoods for other reasons than simply repression, as has been the case since," Anor said.

The program, however, was cancelled in 2003 because it had been judged inefficient by the General Inspection of National Police. Most police officers in these units left quickly without creating lasting connections with the locals.

Several candidates for the 2017 presidential campaign are favorable towards reintroducing the neighborhood police program, as are the police themselves.

Mucchielli said the Theo case has revived the delicate question of police violence and safety in the ZUS, and could benefit the extreme right.

With Republican candidate Francois Fillon dealing with scandals involving his family, and a political left weakened after the presidency of Francois Hollande, Mucchielli fears Marine Le Pen profits from this very negative general mood.

In the latest polls, even if she is defeated in the second round of upcoming presidential elections, her opponents' lead is dwindling, he said. Enditem