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France eyes 'negligent' parents
24/11/2005 19:05 - (SA)
Paris - France's ambitious interior minister, a presidential hopeful widely criticised during the country's worst civil unrest in four decades, is preparing a new crime-prevention law which could cut state handouts to delinquents' parents.
The bill, which Nicolas Sarkozy aims to present to his Cabinet colleagues before the end of the year, follows accusations that his emphasis on tough policing, rather than crime prevention, fuelled the anger of youths who rampaged for three weeks in poor suburbs starting on October 27.
Sarkozy's office said the bill will draw heavily on a parliamentary report on crime prevention presented to the minister last week.
Jacques-Alain Benisti, a lawmaker from Sarkozy's conservative party who led the parliamentary panel, said that Sarkozy supports their 24 recommendations - and plans a few enhancements.
"It is a new approach to crime prevention," Sarkozy spokesperson Franck Louvrier said. Acknowledging the interior minister's emphasis until now on crime-fighting, he added: "Now, we have to invest in the other side."
The report recommends that the government strip "negligent" parents of some state subsidies, handing control of welfare allocations to social workers who would deal with delinquents' families.
Renewing efforts to combat discrimination
It also called for a ministerial-level national office on crime prevention, the possible use of video cameras in schools and stadiums where youths congregate, efforts to root out absenteeism in schools and new community arts and job-hunting centres - at an estimated total cost of less than US$200m, Benisti said.
"That is a lot less than the 500 million (US$588m) in estimated damages during the violence," he said.
The crime-prevention bill would join other measures that President Jacques Chirac's weakened government is taking in response to the worst riots since student-worker protests in 1968.
It is renewing efforts to combat racial discrimination and high unemployment in depressed suburbs - but has rejected the use of job and educational quotas based on race.
The national High Council on Integration warned the government on Thursday against the "temptation" of affirmative action programmes. France has long held to the idea that everyone, regardless of race or origin, is equal under the law - and no specific group should receive favourable treatment.
Sarkozy, who hopes to replace Chirac in presidential elections in 2007, is at the forefront of the debate over the causes of the rioting and responses to it.
He was accused of fuelling rioters' anger by calling delinquents "scum" and with his "zero tolerance" approach to crime. He recently ordered round-the-clock deployments of riot police in troubled neighbourhoods.
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