INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
an uprising in a rural-class French neighborhood has morphed into a wider outburst of hate and anger toward discriminatory state and police
violence.A week of violent unrest in major French cities has been described by witnesses and reporters on the ground as a civil
war.Thousands of people joining nationwide demonstrations against the brutal and racial profiling of France's police and other security
earlier this week.The Swiss city of Lausanne was the scene of violent clashes between police and protesters overnight on Saturday.Police
reported that officers had been pelted with stones and Molotov cocktails in the city center
Witnesses have also reportedly described seeing bricks thrown and windows smashed
The city is located in the mostly French speaking Western region of Switzerland.Many of the demonstrators, who were chanting "justice for
Nahel", had been teenagers, according to Swiss police
expanded to Belgium this week, where people mobilized in large numbers in the capital Brussels, where several fires were brought under
control.At least 64 people had been arrested during confrontations, mostly in the neighborhoods of Anneessens and the nearby Gare du Midi.On
the sidelines of an EU Summit, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said, "What is happening in France has nothing to do with what is
happening in our country."Police violence is seen as a serious issue in Belgium and other European countries
14 people have been killed at the hands of Belgian police since 2017.In France, the mood appears to be calmer since consecutive nights of
violence kicked off last Tuesday.French President Emmanuel Macron chaired two emergency meetings and up to 45,000 security personnel backed
by armored vehicles as well as curfews, bans, transport closures, and thousands of arrests failed to quell the violence.Macron denounced
social media platforms for fuelling the violence
And all of the French authorities' appeals for peace fell on deaf ears.It took the grandmother of Nahel to issue a call for calm, and a
sense of normality has returned to the streets of France, which is still on edge.Foreign travel advice to France has not been revised and
remains in place despite the violence appearing to calm slightly.The unrest, however, has failed to produce any serious government
others before him would still be alive today in France if the color of their skin was white
A traffic stop does not warrant a death sentence.The low-income urban neighborhoods are jam-packed with non-white French citizens, and it's
a similar story in many other Western countries.The state and police treatment of black and other minority groups has been horrible and a
stain on French society.Macron's government, in particular, has effectively doubled down on a violent repression of protesters, let alone
the most serious ones over racism, which has been festering in its current form since at least 2005.Even when there have been peaceful
protests, the government has brutally suppressed protesters
The paramilitary forces have been very heavy-handed.Most of the racism is constitutional, which makes matters worse.The issue around Europe
includes police racism in the UK, which has been under the spotlight recently with the Windrush scandal, but has been around for many
decades as well, with police killing British black men and women at an unproportionate level.This stretches across the Atlantic Ocean to the
United States, where police killings of black Americans have made the headlines and set up unrest similar to ones in France
But the killings that don't make the headlines are far higher.The minority groups feel helpless and disappointed
They don't get equal opportunities to join state institutions, positions, and jobs as white people have because of the color of their
skin.So France and others have a lot to address when it comes to equal rights for all and ethnic profiling
Many reports have highlighted how French police fine people at much higher rates in areas with a higher minority population.Many rights
consecutive governments to take urgent action to reform the system of police stops, for example
A number of national and international research papers have documented how these practices are illegal.Violent or harrowing police stops are
just one of the elements of discrimination by the police that has left no trust or faith among the ethnic minority communities toward "law
enforcement" authorities.There are many police practices in France and beyond France that are not only illegal under international human
rights law, but they are also humiliating as well as degrading to those on the receiving end of the treatment.This is what makes non-white
citizens in France, Switzerland, Belgium, the UK and other Western states, in particular the U.S., feel like second-class citizens in
