%0 Journal Article
%T Challenging the Republic: Interpreting the 2005 Urban Violence in French Suburbs
%A Matthew Moran
%J Opticon1826
%D 2008
%I Ubiquity Press
%R 10.5334/opt.040808
%X In autumn 2005, the French ¡®quartiers sensibles¡¯ exploded into violence. The deaths of Bouna Traor¨¦ and Zyed Benna, two young inhabitants of the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis, proved to be the spark that ignited the profound underlying ¡®malaise¡¯ of these problem suburbs. For three weeks the attention of French, and indeed world media, was focused on the infamous ¡®banlieues¡¯ as cars burned (up to 1400 cars were set alight in a single night at the height of the violence), buildings were attacked, and inhabitants of the suburbs clashed with the forces of order. This paper will use the 2005 riots as a means of exploring the sociocultural situation in the ¡®quartiers sensibles¡¯; and, on a larger scale, the challenge posed by these areas to the ideological concept of French republicanism and the historically-rooted notion of the ¡®one and indivisible French Republic¡¯.
%K riots
%K violence
%K French republicanism
%U http://www.opticon1826.com/article/view/97