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Banlieue of Tunis; Tunisia.

Banlieue of Erevan; Armenia

Example of a wealthy banlieue near Versailles (France) comparable to a U.S. suburb.

Banlieue of Clichy-sous-Bois; France

In francophone areas,^[1] banlieues (French pronunciation: [bɑ̃ljø]) 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 from those in English-speaking countries. The "suburbs" in the United States, for instance, 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 banlieue 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 centre 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.

Euphemism[link]

Since the 1970s and 1980s, the phrase les banlieues has been increasingly used as a euphemism to describe low-income housing projects (HLM) in which mainly French of foreign descent or foreign immigrants reside, especially around Paris, but also some other large French cities. The new connotation of the word is mostly restricted to European French (shared with Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco). In Africa, the word retains a neutral meaning, and in Quebec it means suburb. The word also passed into the Turkish language as "banliyö" to describe a suburb and has a neutral meaning. Recently-coined terms used in politics, sociology, and the French media to describe banlieues with high levels of poverty, violence and drug trafficking include zones urbaines sensibles (sensitive urban zones) and quartiers dits sensibles ("neighbourhoods deemed sensitive").

History[link]

Illustration of the terms Centre-ville (city centre), Banlieue (suburb), Couronne périurbaine (near-urban ring), Unitė urbaine (urban unit) and Aire urbaine (urban area), by INSEE

In France, since the establishment of the Third Republic at the beginning of the 1870s, communities beyond the city centre essentially stopped spreading their own boundaries, as a result of the extension of the larger Paris urban agglomeration. The city—which in France corresponds to the concept of the "Urban unit" – does not necessarily have a correspondence with a single administrative location, and instead includes other communities that link themselves to the city centre and form the banlieues.

Since annexing (rather than incorporating) the banlieues of major French cities during the Second Empire period (Lyon in 1852, Lille in 1858, Paris in 1860, Bordeaux in 1865), the French communities have in effect extended their boundaries very little beyond their delimitations, and have not followed the development of the urban unit existing prior to 1870 as well as almost all large and mid-sized cities in France having a banlieue develop a Couronne pėriurbaine (in English: near-urban ring). Communities in the countryside beyond the near-urban ring are regarded as being outside of the city's strongest social and economic sphere of influence, and are termed Communes périurbaines. In either case, they are divided into numerous autonomous administrative entities.

Geography of the banlieues[link]

Middle-class and upper-class residents essentially live in the West of the city, while the North East has a concentration of residents who are immigrants and who live in poverty.

The word banlieue is, in formal use, a socially neutral term, designating the urbanized zone located around the city centre, comprising both sparsely and heavily populated areas. Therefore, in the Parisian metropolitan area, for example, Neuilly-sur-Seine may be referred to as a banlieue the same as La Courneuve. To distinguish them, Parisians refer to a banlieue aisée (in English: comfortable suburb) for Neuilly, and to a banlieue défavorisée (in English: disadvantaged suburb) for Clichy-sous-Bois.

The Paris region can be divided into several zones. In the North-West and the North-East, many areas are vestiges of former working-class and industrial zones, in the case of Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-d'Oise. In the West, the population is generally Middle Class, and the centre of business and finace, La Défense, is also located there. The South-East banlieues are less homogenous. Close to Paris, there are many communities that are considered "sensitive" or unsafe (Bagneux, Malakoff, Massy, Les Ulis, divided by residential zones with a better reputation (Verrières-le-Buisson, Bourg-la-Reine, Antony, Fontenay-aux-Roses, Sceaux).

The farther away from the Paris city centre, the more the banlieues of the South of Paris can be divided into two zones. On one side, there are the banks of the River Seine where in the past, working-class residents lived — still today, there are pockets of disadvantaged areas — but also other areas that are especially well-off. Also to be found are large cities close to Paris, such as Yvelines, Chanteloup-les-Vignes, Sartrouville, Les Mureaux, Mantes-la-Jolie, Poissy, Achères, Limay, Trappes, Aubergenville) and Évry, Courcouronnes, Grigny, Corbeil-Essonnes, Fleury-Mérogis. Small communities that are socially disparate can be found in Yvelines with Villennes-sur-Seine, Chatou, Croissy-sur-Seine, Le Pecq, Maisons-Laffitte, but also in Essonne and Seine-et-Marne: Etiolles, Draveil, Soisy-sur-Seine, Saint-Pierre-du-Perray or Seine-Port. The social divide occurs on both sides of the Seine. On the other hand, there are commuter areas where residents are comfortable: Bièvre and Chevreuse.

The banlieues of large cities like Lyon and Marseilles, but especially the Parisian banlieues (where there are 8 million residents), are severely criticized and forgotten by the country's territorial spacial planning administration. Ever since the French Commune government of 1871, they were and are still often ostracised, considered by other residents as places that are "lawless" or "outside the law", "outside the Republic", as opposed to "deep France", or "authentic France" associated with the countryside.^[2] However, it is in the banlieues that the young working households are found, that raise children and pay taxes, yet are cruelly lacking in public services, in transportation, education, sports, as well as employment opportunities.^[3]

Banlieues rouges[link]

The banlieues rouges ("red banlieues") are the outskirt districts of Paris where, traditionally, the French Communist Party held mayorships and other elected positions. Examples of these include Ivry-sur-Seine, and Malakoff. Such communities often named streets after Soviet personalities, such as rue Youri Gagarine.

Crime and unrest[link]

Since the 1980s, petty crime has increased in France,^{[citation needed]} much of it blamed on juvenile delinquency fostered within the banlieues. As a result, the banlieues are perceived to have become unsafe places to live,^{[citation needed]} and youths from the banlieues are perceived to be one important source of increased petty crimes and uncivil behaviour.^{[citation needed]} As a result of this criminality, the Front National, a far-right political party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen rose to prominence during the early 1990s on a platform of tougher law enforcement and immigration control.

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.^[4] 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.^[5]

In the summer of 1981, dramatic events involving young Franco-Maghrebis brought about many different reactions from the French public.^[6] 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.^[6] 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 for 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."^[6] Overall the displacement of identities that Franco Maghrebis 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.

See also[link]

• Aire urbaine
• Bidonville
• Bidonvilles in France

Filmography[link]

• L'amour existe, Maurice Pialat, 1961.
• 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle, Jean-Luc Godard, 1967
• Elle court, elle court la banlieue, Gérard Pirès, 1973
• La Haine, Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995
• 100% Arabica, Mahmoud Zemmouri, 1997
• Ma 6-T va crack-er, Jean-François Richet, 1997
• De l’autre côté du Périph’, Bertrand Tavernier, 1997 (documentaire)
• Le Ciel, les Oiseaux et... ta mère !, Djamel Bensalah, 1999
• Il était une fois dans l'oued, Djamel Bensalah, 2004
• L'Esquive, Abdellatif Kechiche, 2004
• Banlieue 13, Pierre Morel, 2004
• Le Journal de Dominique, film by Cyril Mennegun pour un autre regard, 2006.
• Neuilly sa mère, film by Gabriel Julien-Laferrière, 2008.

References[link]

External links[link]

• (French) Audio book (mp3) of the introduction and first chapter of Éric Maurin's book : Le ghetto français, enquête sur le séparatisme social
• So long, Marianne on burning girls and burning cars in France by Alice Schwarzer at signandsight.com]
• The price of disdain French author François Bon has spent years giving writing workshops to youths in the suburbs that are now being set ablaze. He looks critically at where the violence originated and with despair at where it is headed, at signandsight.com
• French Riots Special A dossier with four related feature articles as well as a comprehensive collection of international voices from In Today's Feuilletons and the Magazine Roundup of sighandsight.com
• From Paris to Cairo: Resistance of the Unacculturated
• Website featuring underground rap music from the banlieues.
• Troubled Suburbs Erupt Again

This biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately. (March 2012)

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (January 2012)

Gilles Kepel (born 30 June 1955) is a French political scientist, specialist of the Islam and contemporary Arab world. He is Professor at Sciences Po Paris, formerly known as Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Paris and member of the Institut Universitaire de France.

He graduated in Arabic and philosophy, with two doctorates in sociology and political sciences. He also taught at New York University in 1994, and at Columbia University in 1995. He chaired the Philippe Roman chair in History and International Relations at the London School of Economics in 2009-2010.

Gilles Kepel is the author of several books, since the publication of "The Prophet and the Pharao/ Islamist movements in Sadat's Egypt", in 1984, his books are translated all over the world. He contributes regularly to Le Monde, the New-York Times, La Repubblica, El Pais, and several Arab medias.

Gilles Kepel is a member of the High Council of the Arab World Institute and Academic Director of the Kuwait Program at IEP.

Books by Gilles Kepel[link]

• Beyond terror and martyrdom: The future of the Middle East, Cambridge, Harvard Belknap Press, 2008.
• G. Kepel and J-P Milelli (ed.) Al Qaeda in its own words, HUP, 2008.
• Du jihad à la fitna, Paris, Bayard / BNF, 2005.
• The roots of radical Islam, London, Saqi Books, 2005.
• Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, London, I.B. Tauris, 2004.
• The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, Cambridge, Mass / London, Belknap Press, 2004. — tranaslation of Fitna. guerre au coeur de l'islam : essai, Paris, Gallimard, 2004.
• Bad moon rising: A chronicle of the Middle East today, London, Saqi, 2003.
• Jihad : expansion et déclin de l'islamisme, Paris, Gallimard, [2000], revised edition 2003.
• La Revanche de Dieu: Chrétiens, juifs et musulmans à la reconquête du monde, Paris, Le Seuil, [1991], 2003.
• Chronique d'une guerre d'Orient, automne 2001. Brève chronique d'Israël et de Palestine, avril-mai 2001, Paris, Gallimard, 2002.
• Allah in the West: Islamic movements in America and Europe, Oxford, Polity, 1997.
• A l'ouest d'Allah, Paris, Le Seuil, [1994], 1996.
• The revenge of God: The resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the modern world, Cambridge, Polity, 1994.
• Le Prophète et le Pharaon. Aux sources des mouvements islamistes, Paris, Le Seuil, [1984], revised edition 1993.
• Les banlieues de l'Islam. Naissance d'une religion en France, Paris, Le Seuil, [1987], 2nd edition 1991.

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