With the eclipse of the once-powerful Communist and Socialist Parties in France, and these parties’ traditional roots in the country’s white working class, the residents of long-neglected blue-collar and immigrant suburbs (banlieues) have had little political voice. In recent years, some have turned to the American tradition of community organizing as a way to build power independently. In this first of two articles, Julien Talpin explains the different ways in which activists from the banlieues have imported this tradition, and foreshadows the risks of French activism with an American accent.
