Forget Paris
As France approaches its eighth week under lockdown, the covid-19 pandemic has thrown the nation’s divisions and inequalities into stark relief. One of the most palpable is the stigma directed toward residents of the poorest neighborhoods and suburbs, where many minorities live.
So when the first figures of the effect of the coronavirus showed an abnormally high death rate in low-income neighborhoods such as Seine Saint-Denis, it was the victims who were blamed. They were the perfect scapegoats, people who have always been labeled the troublemakers in French society.
The truth is very different. The problem is not discipline but poverty.
In a country where 17 percent of Parisians were able to leave the region to stay in a second home, the poorest have no choice but to stay in small overcrowded apartments that make social distancing impossible. Most of the people living in these neighborhoods are those who still have to go out to work and use public transportation—people who work as cashiers, care assistants, cleaners, security guards and officers. They are risking their health to provide the services that ensure the country is still functioning, and are being unfairly singled out in the process.
For years, reports have highlighted the weakness of the public services in areas where education, justice, safety and health are not easily or equally accessible. In Seine Saint-Denis, there are 54.6 doctors per 100,000 inhabitants, compared with 71.7 in the whole Paris region. Today, the consequences of that are blatant.
Sadly, the results of these inequalities are entirely predictable. According to Guillaume Duval, a journalist who covers the economy, excess mortality in Seine Saint-Denis is twice as high as in Paris and even more than what it was in the Haut-Rhin department, which is one of the first departments hit by the virus.
As is the case in all the poorest neighborhoods in the world, crime is an issue in Seine Saint-Denis. But the most harmful violence is social and economic—particularly as the lockdown means that each person needs to carry a certificate justifying the reason for their trip when going outside. That has created room for the police to amplify their control and disproportionately target populations who were already over-policed.
Perpetuating the narrative that people who live in impoverished neighborhoods do not care about the law places a stigma on populations who need help. Instead of constructing the same story about the country’s poorest people again and again, maybe we should use the time and resources to ensure they are taken care of—in this pandemic and beyond.