Pardon myFrench

Oblivious majority?: At a meeting with French officials on July 4, Macron hoped to ‘start the painstaking, long-term work needed to understand the deeper reasons’ behind the events. — Photos: AFP

I HAVE never felt as uncomfortable and scrutinised in any European capital as I have in Paris, where many white people exude silent belligerence.

I wasn’t surprised, then, by the video of a French policemen shooting a teenager of Algerian descent during a routine traffic stop. The teenager was 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk. In the days following the fatal shooting, thousands of rioters took to the streets of France and burned down shops and cars. The protesters said they identified with the teenager because they too had faced persecution by the police. The incident seems to have brought France’s racism towards Muslims and other non-white immigrants to the forefront.