<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a tough 13 days for France.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, January 7, my husband stood transfixed in front of the television, saying something about \u00ab\u00a0some shooting somewhere in Paris\u00a0\u00bb. That soon became more specific\u00a0: the shooting took place at the headquarters of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in the 11th arrondissement not far from where we live.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0They say Cabu and Wolinksi were shot\u00a0\u00bb he told me, referring to two of the oldest and best known cartoonists.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0No,\u00a0\u00bb I said, \u00ab\u00a0not possible\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
But it was, and it only got worse. We learned that with a few lucky exceptions the entire staff present that day for the weekly story conference, the first of the year, was dead, gunned down by two black-clad, heavily armed terrorists getting revenge for Charlie Hebdo\u2019s reproduction of drawings of the Prophet Muhammed. Their former headquarters had been firebombed and Charb, as the director, Stephane Charbonnel was called, had been threatened and had round the clock police protection. Yet he and his staff never considered ceasing criticism of Islamic fundamentalists, one of the paper\u2019s favorite targets. Besides, the journalists were having fun doing their jobs which consisted of mocking sacred cows, whether those sacred cows were policemen or politicians, the military, Catholic priests or corporations, or jerks in general.\u00a0\u00a0 That made a lot of people.<\/p>\n
When the killers ran out into the street, they brandished their kalachnikovs and yelled triumphantly\u00a0\u00a0 \u00ab\u00a0We killed Charlie\u00a0!\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
But they didn\u2019t, of course. A groundswell of indignation, emotion and solidarity arose in France, culminating in a march of millions all over the country on the Saturday and Sunday following the attacks.<\/p>\n
Young people and old people bore signs proclaiming \u00ab\u00a0Je Suis Charlie\u00a0\u00bb and marched for freedom of the press. They marched in honor of the journalists and the police killed by the two terrorists and in honor of the four Jewish dead in a kosher grocery store, the victims of a third terrorist in a separate but related attack.\u00a0\u00a0 The three terrorists were killed by French police.<\/p>\n
All through the days that followed, stories of unlikely heroes such as the young African Muslim employee at the kosher store who saved the lives of the Jewish hostages, surfaced. There was good among the bad and a desire of all the communities to come together. There was a solemn state funeral in the courtyard of the Prefecture de Police for the 3 police men and one police woman, burial services in Israel for the four Jewish victims, poignant individual funeral services for the staff members of Charlie Hebdo at various cemeteries in Paris and outside. The last of those services was held today.<\/p>\n
These past days have been a time of tears, a time of reckoning and reflection, and a time of questioning.<\/p>\n
What comes next\u00a0?<\/p>\n
Many things\u00a0: more police protection, more surveillance of potential terrorists, one might say, \u00ab\u00a0the usual\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
And something else related to a chilling fact\u00a0: After the initial show of solidarity, it turned out that not everyone was \u00ab\u00a0for\u00a0\u00bb Charlie. In approximately 200 incidents in French schools students flatly refused to observe the minute of silence for the victims of the attacks. I heard that on the news, but also firsthand from a young professor who teaches in one of these schools.<\/p>\n
Shocking\u00a0? Not when you hear where those schools are located, \u00a0in dreary suburbs far from the Eiffel Tower and the chic Parisian shops tourists so love. When you grow up in a sad looking place where there\u2019s not much to do and no jobs (the unemployment rate in these areas is twice as high as elsewhere) you\u2019ve got a lot of time on your hands and no inherent \u00ab\u00a0respect for the Republic\u00a0\u00bb or even school. Hope may be somewhere for these kids, but it isn\u2019t where they live.<\/p>\n
Years ago when writing about education in France, I was talking to a young friend who taught in one of these towns (Grigny). He told me that he thought a reality check might be in order, as I had based what I wrote on my experience in a posh western suburb. I took him up on his offer to visit his class and drove through the dilapidated suburbs to my destination, a rundown school with a majority population of immigrants. My young friend obviously had figured out how to deal with these students who, unlike their peers in Neuilly or chic Paris, went home at night either to parents who were there but who didn\u2019t speak French and couldn\u2019t help them, or to parents who weren\u2019t there at all because they were working. His main job was in getting their respect and he did, spending the first 45 minutes of the class simply keeping the kids in line. The last 15 minutes were spent in discussing the content of the lesson. Most were barely interested and dismally behind.<\/p>\n
That experience came back to me as the names of Grigny and other dreary suburbs were rolled out by newscasters announcing police raids of possible accomplices of the terrorists.<\/p>\n
I concluded that an entire group of people had been missing at the solidarity march. Where were those kids from the outlying areas\u00a0? Did they not feel French\u00a0? Obviously not.<\/p>\n
And whose fault is it\u00a0?<\/p>\n
That one\u2019s easy. Just look back to the 2005 riots in which the same young people who refused to observe a minute of silence for the victims of this latest attack took to the streets of Paris to wreak havoc and burn cars. The reason \u2013 at that time, at least \u2013 was boredom and unemployment, not religion. Everyone was shocked and the politicians all made concerned clucking noises about change. But nothing changed, and it\u2019s in these same forgotten territories that the young people no one cares about are leaving to fight in Syria.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s needed now is a Marshall Plan for education, a plan that will bring these young people back to the Republic \u2013 if it\u2019s not too late already.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A slightly different version of this story appeared in Bonjour Paris<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.bonjourparis.com\/story\/tough-nine-days-france\/<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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