“Two slaps and off to bed”: but where are we?

On Tuesday 27 June 2023, a 17-year-old teenager, Nahel, was shot and killed at close range by a police officer in Nanterre, after he refused to comply. Since then, France has burned down, in response to the murder of the racialized youth. Damage, fires, riots in the French capital, its suburbs and many regions took on incredible proportions.

Revolt against murder and political speech

Obviously politicians are at the forefront, multiplying interventions in the media, and some say big bullshit, as in the case of the prefect of the Hérault Hugues Moutouh, interviewed by France Bleu:

His best quote? Here she is :

If these kids are raised like weeds, it’s no wonder they stone the police at 12. If tomorrow you catch your child taking to the streets to burn stones to police or fire engines or loot shops… what is the method? It’s two slaps and off to bed! So did our grandparents.

Blue France

If the riots that set the country on fire and blood can worry and indignant everyone and it is completely normal, to affirm, on a public service medium, that we must use the method of “two slaps and to bed to bring in the ranks of teenagers who want blowing everything up because one of their own was shot in the heart by a policeman is just as problematic.

What we hear in this kind of speech paternalistic and adultist, is also a government that places the responsibility for what is happening, from a social point of view, on the educational methods of a denigrated minority population, which is, according to him, unable to manage their own children. It’s just racism and classism. Instead of holding parents accountable for letting their kids burn stuff, it would be interesting to hold the government accountable for allowing this kind of situation to happen.

Policies in perfect disconnect

When we hear comments such as those of the prefect of the Hérault, or when we read tweets such as that of Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice, who does not hesitate to say that we must completely eliminate allowances for parents whose children took part in the riots , one wonders if France will one day be able to heal the immense rift that still exists in society. Are you already on the edge of the abyss? Go jump, we’ll push you all the way.

As for the couple of slaps proposed by the prefect who does not hesitate to mention the civil code during his interview, saying ” In the civil code there is what is called parental authority, it is a set of rights and duties that are exercised in the exclusive interest of the children. », it would be wise to suggest that even if it means quoting the Code civil law, you might as well do it right: it’s against the law to beat children. He would have said ” a woman gets up with a couple of slaps, that’s how it was done »? NO. So, dear prefect, thank you for not taking advantage of the dramatic situation French society is going through to swing these words, at best disconnected, at worst dangerous. These patriarchal musings have no place in 2023.

A shared responsibility

Of course, it is not said here that parents bear no responsibility for their children’s upbringing and actions. But it is equally important to understand why we have come to this, why everything is burning, why anger is brewing. In the case of the unrest and the death of the young Nahel, hearing the Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti exclaim “Let them keep their baby!” » when he should be more concerned with restraining his cops and teaching them not to shoot teenagers in the heart, whether or not they refuse to comply, is outrageous.

As journalist Barbara Krief rightly states in an article by The Obs :

As if the subject were not that of a policeman, a state, an educational system, a social context, but a family crisis. It’s giving single parents far more influence than they actually have. If it takes, as they say, an entire village to raise a child, it also takes an entire society to disown a young person.

And then, which parents are we talking about? Certainly not Nadine Morano, one of whose children will be tried next September for a car accident under the influence of cocaine. Nor Éric Zemmour, whose son was indicted on May 8 for a road accident that injured two while driving drunk.

The parents who receive these lessons on their educational methods are the most precarious and the most disadvantaged.

Barbara Crief

Two weights, two measures, in a racist, paternalistic, adultist and patriarchal society.

Politicians, and more particularly the prefect of the Hérault, know that one can very well educate and explain the rules of life in society to a child, without imposing mandates on him. Will you be able to integrate it?

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