France Beset by Epidemic of Juvenile Violence

When 16-year-old Luc wants respect, he prowls the streets of this tough northern Paris suburb with a pit bull terrier. To pass the time, he takes drugs that he gets in exchange for stolen car stereos.

“I get by,” he said, spitting in the air. “There’s no work. People think we’re scum, so we look for other ways to survive.”

Youths now account for one of every four crimes committed in France. In the Saint-Denis area, home to the stadium that staged soccer’s World Cup championship, the ratio is one in two.

In Luc’s notorious Francs-Moisins housing project, unemployment has hit 80%--seven times the national average--spawning an underclass that feeds off crime.

“Things have gotten steadily worse, and I fear for this generation,” said Roger Kemtchuaing, a local social worker, whose clients include a 13-year-old boy who has raped twice. “These kids no longer believe in school or democracy, so they turn to crime to be heard. Many are armed. Their level of violence is shocking.”

The issue of how to handle youth crime, up by 11% in 1998, is dominating French politics. The gloves came off recently between President Jacques Chirac, a conservative, and Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who are expected to compete in the 2002 presidential election.

Chirac, whose party preaches a no-nonsense approach to violence, implied the Socialists’ tradition of dwelling on the causes of youth violence amounted to being soft on crime.

Stung, Jospin responded that curbing violence is a top priority, saying: “We mustn’t confuse sociology and law.” His interior minister, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, described youth offenders as “savages” and called for stiffer sentences for young criminals.

Chevenement may look with envy at Britain, where Tony Blair’s leftist government allows curfews for children in some troubled areas. The policy, which appalls French leftists, vexes British civil liberties groups but has reduced crime.

In Germany, where unemployment is at the same level as in France, youths are heavily targeted for job-training programs, and violence among them--excluding neo-Nazi groups--is limited.

“Unlike others, France has totally failed to invest in its poor youths and has abandoned them,” said Kemtchuaing, the social worker. “Now we’re paying the price.”

French officials recently traveled to the United States to study crime-fighting methods. While impressed by the results of “zero tolerance” policing in New York, where crime levels have tumbled, they said such tactics weren’t needed in France.

They cited statistics indicating there are three times more homicides per 100,000 people in the United States than in France.

But Chevenement warns that France is showing “a tendency” toward developing U.S.-type ghettos and fears such neighborhoods cannot be effectively policed.

“We’ve studied the American model where neighborhoods exist solely for blacks, Hispanics, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans and Asians . . . and it’s explosive,” he said in a TV interview.

In areas like Saint-Denis, ghettos are drawn on economic lines. Few residents realistically set their sights on moving out. Some won’t even contemplate the idea.

“I recently met a 16-year-old here who had never been to central Paris, although it’s 15 minutes away,” said Kemtchuaing. “He says they speak another language and have different ways. He wouldn’t feel at home.”

Jean-Pierre Rosenczveig, a juvenile judge, considers youth violence “a time bomb.”

Part of the blame, he said, falls on the state for failing to integrate immigrants, mostly African, into a society that has now turned its back on them.

“Their children see no chance of upward social mobility,” he said in an interview. “Their parents can’t be an example to them when they’re unemployed and scorned every day because they’re African. So many turn to crime.”

But Kemtchuaing said immigrants alone aren’t responsible for rising crime, and are too easily used as scapegoats. “There are just as many blond-haired, blue-eyed kids causing havoc throughout France,” he said.