Debate over the decline of Paris and other French cities

Debate over the decline of Paris and other French cities

What is left of the Paris people visited in the nineties? The question runs through the conversation from the very first post, which opens with a blunt headline: "France is no longer a first-world country." The spark is two social media posts showing nighttime riots in the French capital, and from there the analysis shifts from anecdote to diagnosis: what has changed in European cities and how much of it is an imported trend.

The generational comparison is the backbone. Someone who knew the city in the early nineties describes a capital "worth seeing" despite local unfriendliness; someone who returned a couple of years ago speaks of something else entirely. And the diagnosis extends to Marseille, Cannes and Lyon, cited as examples of a decline no longer confined to the suburbs.

Why do people say France is no longer a first-world country?

The core argument is not aesthetic. The claim is that nighttime riots, unrest in outlying neighbourhoods and the sense of insecurity have stopped being isolated episodes and become routine. Against that, the objection is just as blunt: in the nineties there were already people of African origin and there were already riots, and La Haine, released in 1995, is cited as proof that the phenomenon is not new. The discussion, therefore, is not whether the problem exists, but whether it is worse now or simply more visible.

There is a third view gaining ground: the problem is not France, it is the city. It is argued that Spain has devastated its countryside, leaving it without a fallback network, while other countries preserved rural areas as a refuge for their native populations. The conclusion drawn is uncomfortable: city dwellers will have to live with what they have built.

The police response and the limits of the state

The second focus is what to do. Some argue the police should intervene firmly against fireworks being fired at people or windows, because failing to do so amounts to failing to protect citizens. Others reply that this very approach is what produces the problem. The disagreement is not resolved: it is the same decades-old European debate over the state's monopoly on violence.

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In the end, the opening question is left without a definitive answer. If France is no longer first world, someone should explain which EU country still is. And there, the silence is quite eloquent.