cafebabel.com

Six years after riots, French discuss French 'banlieue'

('hkeet',) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:00:00 -0000

In France you will get a different response to this question about its high-rise estates in the suburbs depending on whether you listen to the 'cliché factory' that is the media or the personal experiences of its inhabitants. Above all, it is the magnifying glass of France’s collective identity problem, and all of Europe is involved

France's 'war on criminality' aside, focus on Parisian Roma in 'social insertion villages'

('Hayley',) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:19:08 -0000

Four years after their creation in Europe, 'social integration villages' are being presented as a 'Roma paradise'. European associations for minority protection expose some of the difficulties facing the most discriminated community in the EU. Meanwhile, the French government has since planned to dissolve 300 Roma settlements, whilst the UK is seeing its biggest Romany gypsy site, Dale Farm in Essex, bulldozed

Paris suburbs: cliche piled upon cliche

('James Friscia',) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:17:48 -0000

It's a common European stereotype to define the French suburbs by their one-time violent rioting. But those events took place five years ago. On a visit to the 'banlieue' of Paris today we meet three residents who tell their story - a father-of-three, a social worker and a budding regional election hopeful

Paris suburbs: 'place of exile'

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:00:00 -0000

'Banlieue' is the colloquial reversal of 'lieu du ban', literally, 'place of exile'. In the French suburbs, out of work labourers are holed up in prison-style buildings, along with their children, to whom they pass on their despair

A capital that can’t grow up

('Kate Martin',) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Last May, the German daily newspaper Tagesspeigel warned that in Berlin one child in three lives off 'Hartz IV' (government aid). This is a new high for Germany and is more than twice the national average. Is it an avatar of reunification?

Rome: la dolce vita?

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 12:00:00 -0000

Being a geographical centre, Rome traces its own road in balancing the contradictary identities that flow in from the north and the south