('Gabriel Gonzalez' writes from Paris, France.)
The behavior of the French media establishment since the outset of the ethnic turmoil that has spread throughout the country has attracted a great deal of commentary, in particular in the blogosphere. Most recently, the local media have been more or less openly censoring coverage as a "public service". The official media explanation is that they are exercising their citizenly responsibility of avoiding fanning the flames of the unrest, so as not to give encouragement to the delinquents carrying out the violence. There is no doubt some truth to this, though it is not entirely consistent with the French media's enthusiasm in hyping other forms of "legitimate" social unrest: whether it be striking truck drivers, or firemen or police blocking public highways; discontented farmers or fisherman destroying property, burning down public buildings and vehicles; or public railway workers sabotaging transportation facilities or hijacking ferry boats; or even Palestinian suicide bombers "resisting" Israeli oppression or Iraqi "insurgents" fighting the American occupation.
Others have interpreted the relative downplaying of the violence by the French media as a sign of political correctness or "multiculturalism", i.e. an attempt to minimize the extent of the violence lest if reflect poorly on the perpetrators or play into the hands of the parties of the far right, such as the Front national. There are even claims that the U.S. media is engaged in similar sins of omission or distortion. I am even not entirely convinced there is much basis for this interpretation which seems little more than a projection by those making the claim of their own world views and biases (none of us of course are completely immune from this tendency).
In any event, neither explanation ? an interest in contributing to restoring public order by not giving the perpetrators a wide audience or a desire to appease multiculturalists or far right extremists ? addresses the crucial role that the French media establishment plays in preserving, promoting and protecting the national image of French grandeur and moral superiority by limiting the damage caused by the riots.
This has been a far more important factor in explaining French media coverage (or non-coverage) and presentation of the recent and still ongoing riots.
Consider: After the first few days of rioting, the French press had hardly begun to cover the violence, and none of the major dailies ? Le Monde, Le Figaro or Lib??tion ? had given serious first page treatment (in particular, above the fold) to events that were of clear social, political and historical importance from the outset. All three papers were far too busy covering the allegations of secret CIA detention centers, first revealed in the Washington Post, and the continuing public transportation strike in Marseille. Both of these topics ? the CIA and the labor strikes ? fit in neatly with a French establishment obsession with defense of the "mod?? fran??s" ? in both economic policy as well as foreign policy ? that has dominated the recent political debate (and thus the establishment media debate) in the recent past, most notably in connection with economic reform proposals and the European constitution.
By contrast, race riots by unassimilated minorities do not fit well with the terms on which the defense of the French model as the centerpiece of virtually all recent French policy debate has been conducted, in particular the supposition that there is a universal societal interest in defending the entrenched rights of major labor unions, big state controlled companies, protected public service sector employees, early retirees with fat severance packages, as well as the interests of all of the other soon-to-retire boomers whose worldview defines the current establishment in power , and who have delusions of living off future generations (including presumably "immigrants") while continuing to point their fingers at the capitalists, imperialist Americans, occupying Jews, etc. as the cause of all of the world's ills.
By the fourth day of riots, the local French media establishment were devoting a great part of their "coverage" to attacking foreign (in particular American) media for supposedly exaggerating the gravity of the events in France: the main private broadcast channel TF1 (and its cable affiliate LCI) attacked CNN for comparisons with the 1992 L.A. riots ? how ridiculous! Barely a hundred cars had been torched (we are now counting towards 8,000). The other major networks and newspapers were busy attacking the U.S. print media as well as Fox News for supposed hyperbole and unjustified meddling. More recently, the French Minister of Tourism has been making the rounds on French television and radio shows to discuss the "unwarranted" misrepresentation of the French disturbances by foreign ? in particular American ? media with the supposed aim of maliciously wooing away foreign tourists by slandering La R??blique.
This concern of the French media for the protection of the national image ? unmatched in any other major Western democracy ? corresponds to both the recent practice of the French media as well as a long-term pattern dating back to the post-WWII "Vichy Syndrome". What characterizes this syndrome is a concerted effort on the part of the major social and political institutions ? government, the main political parties, the press, academia ?to ignore, deny, downplay, rationalize or excuse reprehensible behaviour, often collective, that reflects poorly on the Nation. The syndrome supposes a tacit agreement between all of these social actors, with the active complicity of a pliant population, aimed at protecting a national image at the expense of the truth or rectification of past injustices. (I have written about these relationships in the past in relation to French foreign policy generally.)
