法國穆斯林現況：不受到法國政府(House Arrest)與民眾的信賴。
Paris, France - Kamel Fertass and his
friends are sitting outside their local McDonalds. It is in the middle of a
roundabout in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. "You want to hear my
song?" he asks, holding out his phone.
He sings in a mixture of French and Arabic, his voice
synthesised through a vocorder. The song is entitled 'J'ai mal à ma France' - I
feel the pain of my France. This is the street cleaner's first musical foray, a
means of channelling the grief he felt after hearing about the attacks on Paris
on November 13.
"It's for everybody in France. We are French above all
else," says the 28-year-old, whose parents came to this country from
Morocco. "It's all we know. It's work, it's survival, it's everyday
life."
His declaration of allegiance is heartfelt, but the emotions are
mixed. Living in Clichy-sous-Bois, one of the country's most deprived areas, in
a dystopian setting of battered high-rises and low expectations, has not
encouraged feelings of belonging for him.
Back in 2005, the suburb emerged as a symbol of the
marginalisation experienced by immigrant youths in France, when two teenagers were
electrocuted in an electricity substation after being wrongfully
pursued by police, sparking massive riots in banlieues across the nation.
Locals say that, bar some new buildings, not much has changed
since then. Unemployment stands at 40 percent. With no major roads and no rail
link, the community remains cut-off from central Paris, which is only 10
miles away. (第三世界?)
Not that Fertass goes there much anyway. He doesn't feel
comfortable, especially not since the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher killings
in January.
"As Muslims, we're seen in a negative light," he says.
"We feel judged. There's a lack of trust."
It's a feeling that's well-documented,
this sense among France's Muslims of being second-class
citizens.
But, in the wake of Charlie Hebdo, which set off a passionate
national debate on French identity and values, exemplified by the 'Je suis
Charlie' slogan, many Muslims felt even more alienated from mainstream French
society.
Now, the fresh horror of November's massacre, which took 130
lives, has darkened the picture further for French Muslims.
In the 10 days that followed it, official sources reported 35
attacks, ranging from the stabbing of a woman wearing a hijab in Marseille to
the painting of red crosses on a mosque in the Parisian suburb of Créteil.
It's an improvement on the 116 attacks on Muslims registered by
Dilcra, the government body in charge of collecting data, in the fortnight
following Charlie Hebdo.
But, if the polls are anything to go by, public
sentiment towards Muslims has worsened. The far-right
National Front party made unprecedented gains in the first round of regional
elections on December 6, having successfully surfed the current wave of fear to
advance its anti-immigrant agenda. The party won around 30 percent of the vote,
coming top in six of the country's 13 regions.
The final outcome will be decided in the December 13 run-off,
but the first-round results have already been hailed as a historic
breakthrough.
This is despite the socialist government's tough response to the
crisis.
The current state of emergency, in place until the end of
February, features a raft of hardline measures, including the deployment of
more armed police, who now have vast powers to raid, interrogate and arrest -
without judicial oversight.
But there are fears that innocents are being ensnared in the
dragnet and stripped of their fundamental liberties.
Difficulties of defence
Yasser Louati, a spokesman for Collectif contre l'islamophobie
en France (CCIF), says that Muslims face a triple onslaught of threats - from
those who conduct the attacks, from citizens who blame them for the attacks
and, now, from the government.
Furthermore, he says, in the current state of collective
post-traumatic stress, national unity is seen as an obligation and
dissent is not tolerated.
Lawyer Xavier Nogueras is defending a handful of the 300 people
who have been placed under house arrest.
At the Tribunal Administratif de Montreuil, his latest client
seems hopeful. The owner of a halal burger restaurant for the past 15 years has
the backing of figures at his local town hall.
Nogueras hands over the testimonies to the judge, launching into
a discourse to slowly unravel the lives of the accused. His client's wife works
long hours at an insurance office. Since he was put under house arrest, he has
depended on friends to do the school runs and to manage the restaurant. Worse,
some customers are now avoiding the restaurant.
"He has never set foot in Iraq or Syria. He's not a
candidate for jihad. The only problem is that he runs a restaurant which dozens
of Muslims frequent every day," says Nogueras.
Nogueras' client is listed on the so-called S-Files, an alert
system used by the security services to flag threats.
In late November, Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced that, of
the 20,000 files on record, roughly half pertain to cases with suspected links
to radicalised Islamic groups. There is no question that the files have enabled
the authorities to identify many of the figures involved in mass murder.
But neither Nogueras nor his client have had access to the
contents of the file, making it difficult to present a defence.
Proportionate punishment
A representative from the Ministry of the Interior acknowledges
that the measure is not based on "uncontestable fact", but on
"signs" that radicals held meetings in the restaurant. Given the
current climate, house arrest is "proportionate" to the public
threat.
It is the turn of the defendant to speak.
"We have all sorts of customers, people who look like me,
people with beards, hipsters, police, people who come on mopeds or with
buggies," explains the man.
"I am tolerant, I smoke two packs of cigarettes a day, I
drink, I pray … I only speak a little bit of Arabic. I can't have a
conversation. I've never been to a Muslim school," he pleads.
Having said everything to convince the judge that he is living
according to the values of the Republic, he returns to his bench. In his denim
shirt, trainers and aviator shades, he looks more hipster than jihadist. But
then, there's the beard. In a context where simple suspicion can land you under
arrest, these things matter.
That afternoon, the request for a suspension of the house
arrest is rejected.
Increased attacks
In the 18th arrondissement of Paris, a group of local youth are
discussing the subject of beards.
They're assembled in the Café Associatif on Rue Myrha in the
Goutte d'Or neighbourhood, a flashpoint for inter-religious tensions.
Since the Charlie Hebdo incident, attacks on Muslims in the
neighbourhood have included wine thrown on worshippers leaving the Khalid Ibn
Walid mosque and the distribution of Islamophobic pamphlets.
Twenty-four-year-old Abou Saoubaine explains how a non-Muslim
friend took umbrage after he started growing a beard.
Yet, he's not especially devout and takes special care these
days to avoid pious locals who stop him in the street to encourage him to
attend prayer.
"You can't oblige people to go," he says, indignantly,
comparing it to smoking because of peer pressure to look cool.
He's livid about the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL). "The people who did the attacks are dogs. They've stained
us," he says.
Twenty-six-year-old Mohammed Ben Salem, who runs the café, says
there's a feeling of being on trial since the attacks. "People are scared
of us now. The perpetrators of the attacks have sullied us Muslims. And the
public doesn't know how to differentiate. They generalise."
Generally, while there's no shortage of outrage on the ground,
France's Muslim community has been criticised for not taking a lead in the
fight against groups such as ISIL, with politicians like former prime minister
Alain Juppé calling on France's Muslims to "say clearly that they have
nothing to do with the barbarians of ISIL" in the aftermath of the
attacks.
It's a call to action that irritates many in the community, who
already feel they have been on a non-stop self-justification drive since
Charlie Hebdo.
Prominent Muslim organisations, representing nearly all the
country's mosques, gathered on November 29, singing La Marseillaise and vowing
allegiance to the "Republican pact".
But there has been an underlying unease about heavy-handed raids
on the country's mosques.
With the country now on constant high alert, the public appetite
for tough security measures shows no sign of waning.
But Nogueras is wary of the government's next moves, and thinks
the constitutional changes mooted by the socialist government could turn the state
of emergency into a permanent tool of executive power, placing it beyond
the reach of lawmakers and seriously jeopardising fundamental liberties.
In the rush to tighten national security and accelerate military
action in Syria, there has been scant political debate on the more complex
issues, in particular those around social marginalisation.
Critics fear that panic-driven lawmaking will fuel an
us-versus-them rhetoric that could further stigmatise France's Muslims.
In an op-ed published in politico.eu, Kenneth Roth, the
executive director of Human Rights Watch, warns that tarring entire communities
risks undermining their potential for cooperation with the police.
Communities, he says, "should be embraced not only as
citizens and long-term residents but as the people most likely to dissuade
others from violence and report those who might resort to it".
In the blink of an eye
Back in Clichy-sous-Bois, Abdullah, a 40-year-old delivery man,
is holding court at the local PMU betting shop. He lives in Chêne-Pointu, a
Corbusier-inspired vision of high-rise living gone wrong, where families are
crammed cheek by jowl in "cages" with leaking roofs and lifts that
haven't worked in years.
"Politicians go on about Daesh (ISIL). But look at the mess
they've already created in Iraq and Libya," he says. "They created
all this. Now they need to turn down the volume on Daesh, cut off their oxygen
supply, find new solutions, stop the hatred spreading.
"We have to find a way to persuade these people to drop
their arms. Because if we continue on a war-footing, they will always find a
way to recruit people on the inside.
Young Muslims here have nothing. They see Daesh on the
television and believe that they have found a way to become strong.
"Recruitment can happen in the blink of an eye," he
says. "What these young people need is help."
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