French PM Attal champions ‘authority, respect’ to curb youth violence – Technologist

Gabriel Attal marked his 100^th day as prime minister on Thursday, April 18, by speaking of “authority,” “respect” and “civism.” Two weeks after the murder of a 15-year-old, Shemseddine, who was beaten up as he left his middle school in Viry-Châtillon, in the Paris suburbs, the prime minister traveled to the town traumatized by the tragedy.

From the lectern set up in front of the town hall, Attal called for a “real surge of authority,” which should help stem the violence perpetrated by a portion of young people. “Today, it’s the Republic that’s counter-attacking,” he declared, addressing the town’s elected representatives and association leaders. “This is what we’ve come from Viry-Châtillon to launch: the nation’s general mobilization to reconnect with its teenagers, to curb violence.”

Shemseddine’s death on April 4 came just a few days after a 13-year-old, Samara, was attacked by three minors aged 14 and 15 outside her middle school in Montpellier. On Monday night, in Grande-Synthe, northern France, 22-year-old Philippe was fatally wounded by two minors aged 14 and 15, following an “ambush.” “An act of barbarism,” denounced the prime minister on Thursday evening on BFM-TV. “Very often, the first victim of youth violence is youth itself.”

“Some of our teenagers are slowly sliding towards a form of isolation, individualism, and sometimes even towards the worst: towards a form of unbridled, morbid violence, with no rules,” said Attal in Viry-Châtillon. He insisted that it was “a minority of teenagers, whom the French no longer understand.” “How can we accept this spiral, this surge, this addiction to violence on the part of some of our teenagers?” Today, “twice as many teenagers are involved in assault and battery, four times as many in drug trafficking, and seven times as many in armed robbery as in the general population,” he listed, also pointing to “Islamist entryism, which is on the increase.”

‘Helping parents to take responsibility’

Many of these young people,” continued Attal, “feel that their age permits everything. They believe that because they’re 13, 14 or 15, nothing will ever happen to them.” But “the culture of excuses is over,” he asserted. Determined to “get to the root of the problem,” the prime minister announced a series of measures, in line with his government policy statement, delivered on January 30 at the Assemblée Nationale: “You break, you fix, you dirty, you clean, you defy authority, you learn to respect it.”

So, to “help parents,” who are “often single women,” he said, “all middle schoolers will attend school every day of the week, between 8 am and 6 pm.” The scheme, he explained on BFM-TV, is non-binding and initially reserved for neighborhoods designated as economically deprived. And for parents whose children are “starting to fall into bad company,” he proposed that they be sent to a boarding school, far from their neighborhood, to “find structure,” as “there are tens of thousands of places [of this type of establishment] in our country that are desperately empty.” Attal will visit the first of these boarding schools on Monday, April 22, in Nice, with Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti.

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