In francophone areas, banlieues () are the "outskirts" of a city: the zone around a city that is under the city's rule.
Banlieues are translated as "suburbs", as these are also residential areas on the outer edge of a city, but the connotations of the term "banlieue" in France can be different than those in the United States and on occasion other English speaking countries. The "suburbs" in the United States are generally associated with low population density, detached or semi-detached housing and middle and upper class inhabitants. On the other hand, in France banlieues are more frequently areas of low-income apartments and social housing. Thus, the equivalent of banlieues in the United States would be "the projects". In the UK, the equivalent would be a "council estate". The term itself comes from the two French words ban and lieue ("league", roughly four kilometers). The old French term for suburb was faubourg.
Banlieues do include single-family home neighborhoods known as quartiers pavillonnaires. And just like the city-center or the city at the core of an urban area, banlieues may be rich, middle-class or poor; Versailles, Le Vésinet, Orsay and Neuilly-sur-Seine are affluent banlieues of Paris, while Clichy-sous-Bois is a poor one.
Violent clashes between hundreds of youths and French police in the Paris banlieue of Clichy-sous-Bois began on 27 October 2005 and continued for more than seventeen nights. The 2005 Paris suburb riots were triggered by the deaths of two teenagers who were, allegedly, attempting to hide from police in an electrical substation and were electrocuted.
In the summer of 1981, dramatic events involving young Franco-Maghrebis brought about many different reactions from the French Public. Within the Banlieues, events called rodeos would occur, where young "banlieusards" would steal cars and perform stunts as well as race them. Then, before the police could catch them, they would abandon the cars and set them on fire. During July and August 1981 around 250 cars were vandalized. Shortly after this incident, grass roots groups began to demonstrate in public in 1983-1984 to publicise the problems of the Beurs and immigrants in France. In doing so, Arabs, specifically Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians, and Berbers, in France began to develop a stronger identity unified by the problems that have been imposed on them economically and politically. The banlieue became a unifying point to the marginalized immigrants of France, despite the fact that there are various identities that constitute these individual groups. "We don't consider ourselves completely French...Our parents were Arabs...We were born in France (and only visited Algeria a few times)...So what are we? French? Arab? In the eyes of the French we are Arabs...but when we visit Algeria some people call us immigrants and say we've rejected our culture. We've even had stones thrown at us." Overall the displacement of identities that Franco Maghrebi's feel becomes a unifying factor in French society and assimilation is particularly difficult because of their placement in the banlieue, and the French's refusal to assimilate due to the violence portrayed at events such as in the summer of 1981.
Category:Geography of France Category:Human habitats Category:French words and phrases
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