How I Have Been Used By the French Media

Sanda Nicola, special correspondent to Paris of Realitatea TV television station, is amazed by the coverage French media give to the riots in Paris.

Sanda Nicola, of Realitatea TV, in Paris

Sanda Nicola, special correspondent to Paris of Realitatea TV television station, is amazed by the coverage French media give to the riots in Paris.

In a special report to Jurnalul National, Nicola tells how she is not so proud now for having been used by French television stations as an example of balanced coverage of the riots from a foreign journalist:

"558 cars were set on fire and 204 people were apprehended in the 13th day of riots in the suburbs" announced this morning France 2. And that was it.

Next story in the newscast was about the situation in Iraq.

This type of coverage leaves the foreign media in Paris perplexed.

We all agree the French are giving the events a spin. Or at least part of the French media performs like that. The ingredients are: too little information, almost no expert opinion, and a neutral tone.

This brings me back to Bernard, a special correspondent for France 2, who interviewed me on the way international media covers the events in France. I had just arrived in France at the time, so I did not take the liberty to make any grand statements, but stated that I wanted first to understand what was going on.

I saw the report next day on Euronews and I was thrilled to see that a lot of shots showing me were in the final cut. But after I called relatives back home to boast that "I was on France 2 and Euronews," I sat down to watch the report a few more times, this time paying more attention to Bernard’s off-camera commentary, than to my own make-up.

The French reporter disapproved of the CNN coverage and found it absurd that television stations from as far as China and Korea arrived in Paris, suggesting that international media was damaging France’s image.

I listened carefully at my own statement: it was neutral. I, for one, would not have picked it from the lot. Why, then, did Bernard use it, against statements of such big names like Jim Clancy, of CNN?

The following day I understood why, when I interviewed Bernard live for Realitatea TV.

Bernard was very annoyed when I asked him if the attacks were spontaneous or organized. He answered nervously that these were isolated incidents and France was not Chechnya.

I probed further, asking Bernard if the foreign media was overreacting.

Then he really heated up, moving his hands in anger and turning red, while stating that France was the victim of some sort of international conspiracy. Somehow, he even managed to bring in the idea that even sVladimirt Putin, sthe Russian presidentt, was rejoicing.

I understood then and there that I lost Bernard’s sympathy, and I got confirmation of that a few hours later. He already promised me that a crew of France 2 would guide ours in the Paris suburbs, and also help us with contacts in the French police. At midnight I got a phone call from France 2, telling me to go to sleep since everything was calm now.

Lucky me I tend to double check: it turned out to be the most violent nights of all.

So, now I understood that Bernard used me, the greenhorn just arrived on Charles de Gaulle airport, to sell the image of a journalist not having much to say, as the good guy in journalism, whereas the fact that I did not have much to say had to do with the fact that I indeed had just arrived and did not witness yet the events.

If Bernard would ask me the same questions again, I would tell him this time that the authorities lost control of the whole situation.

Yes, the children of immigrants are out of control, and their attacks should be stopped, given that now they turned violent not only against the authorities, but also against other citizens.

At the same time, however, France has a very weak case for the multicultural society it boasts.

These children on a rampage-spree are the product of that society which welcomed their parents to do the menial jobs, but did not provide more or even that little for them.

The word going around is that these youngsters are Arabs. But many of them know to say only «Salam Alecum» in Arabic, and never visited their grandparents in Algeria.

Still, they are people who do not feel at home either here, in Western Europe, or in the Arab world. They have no sense of belonging and allegiance.

What is more worrying though is that similar populations, with the same kind of frustrations live elsewhere in Western Europe too.

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, a London based Arabic language daily, stated that in order to understand what goes on in France one has to understand the status of immigrants in this country.

France hosts the largest Islamic group in Western Europe: four to five million people.

The ethnic breakdown of this community in France is made of Arabs from Middle East and North Africa and black Africans; in Great Britain - it consists of Hindus and Pakistanis, while in Germany it consists of Turks.

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat daily said that immigrants in France do not enjoy justice and fair treatment, that they live in ghettos on the fringes of big cities like Paris, Lyon, and Marseille.

Their future is mired by unemployment, begging or drifting; hence they resort to violence and crime to terrorize Arabs and non-Arabs.

"Poverty breeds violence and deviant behavior in any society, and the events were predictable," concludes the daily.