Talk:Social situation in the French suburbs/Archive 1

The main discussion area for this series of articles is at: WP:APARTHEID

Merge proposal

It is extremely bad etiquette to remove a "merge" tag without discussion (in fact it is against the rules, but I don't feel like wikilawyering). Please do not remove the tag until a consensus develops either way.

If you oppose the proposal, you should discuss in the centralized thread in the {{mergeto}} article, in this case Allegations of apartheid. I will restore the tagging, and add a note in the correct thread. Thanks!--Cerejota 00:38, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You didn't state a reason for doing so, and the article is 14k long and almost 1900 words. It's far too big to merge. Please stop using tags as a weapon to deface articles you don't like. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Jayjg, it is false that I did not provide a rationale. I did so here in the correct talk page, which is the talk page of the {{mergeto}} page. I ask you please apologize for misrepresenting me.--Cerejota 05:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You're right, I apologize. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:22, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Just don't lose your cool like that, it is embarassing to watch ;). You can be a hard ass, but I have learned that you are ultimately just with does with good faith. Thats freaking important if this is to be The Encyclopedia.--Cerejota 00:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Quote farm

Apparently to make the article appear more extensive than it actually is, extensive quotes have been added form single sources. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and attacks all quality principles of wikipedia. If we cleanup the quote farm, which is unnecesary, we are left with a good section for the parent article. Thanks!--Cerejota 04:28, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

A dozen good sources, all talking about different aspects of the same thing. Please stop defacing articles you don't like with spurious tags. Thanks. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:33, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Jayjg, when did I say I didn't like this article, and why is placing a quote farm a spurious tag? The article doesn't meet quality standards, and that is what this tag is for. I suggest you calm down, man. Thanks!--Cerejota 05:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Jayjg, why you didn't like my version, which was arguably more encyclopedic and less of a quotefarm, but kept all the sources you provided?--Cerejota 12:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The quotes added a great deal of information that wasn't captured in the summaries. Perhaps you can suggest some ways of shortening the quotes here that will still capture the meaning and intent and impact of the sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we work it together? I be honest with you, from my perspective quotes in general should be limited to a minimum, because they take away from the encyclopedic value. You obviously disagree, but appear willing to work it out, so I am happy to oblige.

I did include the one in the end because I tried four re-writes and still came out deeply unsatisfied with the results. I think my version doesn't minimize intent and impact of the sources, but ey of the beholder. I also think we should allow the encyclopedic voice its space. Since being balanced and un-biased is a given in wikipedia, as long as we are careful, I think we can do it fine. I have the proposed the same in other quotefarms.

Lets do something. I create a subpage in this talk page Talk:Allegations of French apartheid\UnquotedVersion, I put my version there, and we can discuss (and add edits, also by others, no this is my page- stay away here), and come up with some sort of consensus. I think it can work ok, as we both agree on notability and relvance of the sourced material. Thanks! --Cerejota 00:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

allegation of lies

France maintained colonial rule in the territory which has been described as "quasi-apartheid" this is stupid and totally false. there was no such things as US buses for black and white in algeria, besides algeria was truly part of france as made of département like today corsica. for example muslim children went in public schools with european french kids, i've seen worst apartheids. this view is a simplification by american editors, reads like all mslim in france are from algeria, but this totally false many comes from morroco and tunisia and black africa as well, all of which are former french colony or protectorates, there is not a single word about this. this article is totaly oriented and a mystification this can be seen in "Criticism"'s POV authors selection. this article doesn't exist in other language, don't ask why. Paris By Night 09:40, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Paris By Night, you have to understand the background. This is a prank article. The people writing it have no interest in or knowledge about France or even racial discrimination. Weird as it sounds, this article is a WP:POINT extension of disputes within the Israel-Palestine sections of Wikipedia. As you probably know, there has long been a heated debate among scholars, journalists and public figures involving comparisons between the Israeli occupation and South African apartheid, from ethical and historical perspectives, but also from strategic perspectives (with regards to Israel's demographic concerns, for example, and the international community's search for a just and pragmatic solution). Ardent Israeli nationalist editors object to the very existence of the article Allegations of Israeli apartheid, but haven't found much support for their cause, so they've come up with the novel strategy you're now encountering. They've googled around to see if the word "apartheid" has ever been used, even only rhetorically or in passing, in connection with other societies and government policies. When they find two or more such citations, they create one of these prank articles to house them. If you try to get this article deleted, they'll try to recruit you to join them in their opposition to the Israel article, making clear that the article you care about is a hostage to the one they care about.--G-Dett 15:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with everything G-Dett is saying here except two things.

1) This is not a prank article. It exists to inform people on how rhetoric is used in political debates about discrimination. If Wikipedia decides that political rhetoric like this doesn't deserve its own article, then we can work on creating a stricter notability guideline.

2) I am not not adding these articles to make a WP:POINT, but rather to inform people that ridiculous rhetoric is used in every debate about discrimination/politics. Because Wikipedia has decided such rhetoric is worthy of articles, then can you really blame us for not wanting Wikipedia to single out Israel and Cuba for abusive rhetoric? It's an NPOV issue to me, at least.--Urthogie 16:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Law of unintended consequences.

A box of soap!

However, I do not share the level of vitrol here towards the allegations. I will allow myself one, and only one, soapbox post on all of these pages, and it will be this: When Cuban people are denied entry to the hotels they built, when the French - keen on preaching Liberte, Equalite, Fraternite at the world - face insurrections and riots for their imperial and colonialist policies, when the United States lock-ups ten percent of the black adult population at any given moment, when Israel spends money and resources building a walled ghetto for themselves and lacks the bravery the white South Africans had in becoming a minority in the State they built, when the ghetto and apartheid (soft, hard, criminal, tourist, and gender) become the norm, any self-respecting encyclopedia must report it. Most of the editors don't realize it, but by focusing on Israel so much, they have actually opened the door to a much more wider dialog. One that includes the limits of analogy and hyperbole, but also the commonality of concerns and aspirations of human beings. Even in exclusion we turn out to be the same... --Cerejota 00:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Cerejota, you should refrain from writing in French, it is really ridiculous. Accents are not optional features which look cool and make things look like they are copied from an expensive restaurant, so if you can't write "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité", just write in English.

As for the "imperial and colonialist policies", I'd like to see you develop how a country implements "imperial and colonialist policies" in the heart of its own territory. Rama 21:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Really? Is that all you can do, fight over accents? In english wikipedia? Really? Déconner!:D --Cerejota 12:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

No, as you can see, I can also argue that your usage of the words "imperialist and colonialist policies" have no basis whatsoever and is purely insulting. That you did not answer, not even with a non-syntactical reply. Rama 12:59, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Déconner used the way you did, Cerejota, it doesn't mean nothing... That's just as if you were answering "orcish short sword" to a yes/no question. But I'm really interested to read your development about the so-called French "imperialist and colonialist policies" Flying jacket 15:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

article is undergoing AFD proposal

Can we continue this debate after the AFD result comes in? Thanks, --Urthogie 14:26, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Why? we do not support it, so why should it matter? I am doing a DRV if delete is the outcome, because it would be an unjust deletion of notable, properly sourced content. However, I am confident it wont come to that.--Cerejota 00:21, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Notes / References duplication

I think there has been some sort of error. The notes section is an exactly duplicate of the references section in the article. 15 each. The order is slightly different though. I thought it was an intentional error but someone just reverted my fix of it. --CGM1980 15:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Notes and references are different. Notes are tied to specific items in the text; References are an alphabetical listing of every single source used in an article. Notes may use sources multiple times, in multiple ways (different quotes, different page numbers); references list sources only once. Notes include page numbers; references include ISBN numbers. For a better example of how this works, see Rudolf Vrba. In this case, some of the notes also contain quotations backing the claims advanced for them, which also makes them different. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Separate sections for notes and references is useful when a piece of writing draws upon a large fund of research that is only partially represented by the specific citations. In this case, having both sections seems weird because the notes and references are virtually identical. They are virtually identical because the "research" for the article consisted entirely of gathering citations, in an automated fashion through search engines. When a subject is researched not by reading books and article but by data-mining for key-word quotes, the resulting article's references will be identical to its citations.--G-Dett 21:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

heading change

They are both shorter, and less original researchy.--Cerejota 12:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Amazing...

I just quote the article :

Tariq Ramadan, a French Muslim,...

But, according to Tariq Ramadan, the man seems to be a Swiss Muslim...

Flying jacket 15:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

He's both. Lives in France-- french citizen.--Urthogie 15:28, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid to tell you that I don't find any reference to his french nationality through the Internet. Could it be an unreferenced assertion ? Flying jacket 15:45, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

My mistake. He is a scholar of French society, not a Frenchman himself.--Urthogie 16:34, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I've just changed that. Had not seen the current talk, sorry. --Ouicoude 16:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Tarik ramadan is NOT a scholar of French society, he is a scholar of islam. Miuki 07:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Quotefarm

Since the AfD is over, I think its time to focus on quotefarm (ie quality).

I will just be bold and do my edits. They will be mostly switch sourced material to encyclopedic voice, rather than quotes, whenever possible.

Thanks!--Cerejota 15:23, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You have my full support on this one. There are way too much quotes in this article. It looks like a newspaper article, and It should not. NicDumZ ~ 14:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Weird page !

Calling the french treatment of certain categories of people an "apartheid" is a funny idea, as France is one of the only countries where the nation doesn't recognize "races" (I quote this ugly word) and that gives the very same treatment to all religions. It might be hard to believe for some non-french, but there is absolultely no way to count the amout of french people who are "black" or "white" or "blue" or "green", as this information has no legal existence : it's not on the id card, not on the medical files, it just exists on the police document, along the eyes colour and the existence of tatoos. In a same way, religion is not a public matter, it is something you do at home, like any hobby. It is not possible, therefore, to tell who is a catholic, a jew, a lutherian, a muslim or an atheist, and to count such people. And of course, people love who they want to.
Well my point is that "apartheid" is not racism, it is a legally cristalized racism. Of course, racism exists in France like everywhere in the world (if you want to find a stupid and mean man, just seek for any man, he'll do fine), but it is not organized by the nation. The word "apartheid" is not well-used. But what is the most funny is that this article quotes Tariq Ramadan who is among the people who ask for a real separation between the "communities" even though they don't exist in a legal way : he allegates France to be in the situation of the south african apartheid, but he does all he can to get to that. I see that on the en: article about Ramadan, he is known as a reformer, well he is not known as that here : he is a skillful and hansome proselyt who doesn't say the same things on french mass medias (a french muslim is french before being muslim...) and on the tapes he spreads in the suburbs (...unless it is against the Qran). Basicaly, most of the specialists, like Antoine Sfeir (very famous analyst) think that Tariq Ramadan is a fondamentalist.
Anyways, I hope there will be a way to do anything of that page but for me it is as stupid as if the fr: wikipedia had an article as "Allegations of George Bush being a nazi" : nazism, like apartheid, are well-defined organizations, well defined historic periods, one sometimes use them as insults, because they are strong words, but it is (sorry) a little stupid to use them litterally concerning a contemporary subject. Jean-no 00:11, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Just one other thing : I'm just talking about the present situation. In the colonial era and under the governement of Vichy, there have been a "racial" treatment of people in France (but inter-cultural/racial/religions marriage has never been forbidden as far as I know, even during the slavery period). Jean-no

This is exactly what I tried to explain during the AFD before being thrown out of the debate by the author of the article himself because I never wrote in other AFDs before (There should be a first time, you know).

Many good arguments were raised against "allegation of French apartheid" but they were considered unconvincing by those who finally decided to keep the article. Most people in favour of "deletion" were classified as biaised French editors who wanted to defend their country's reputation.

I think this appreciation was wrong because many French people like you and me tried to explain that France does not have any legal segregation system but face instead social segregation and racism. These problems are sometime mentionned in a metaphoric way as "social apartheid" (I think this metaphor is inadequate, but THIS SUBJECT could be rightly discussed as THIS OPINION OF MINE IS ONLY AN OPINION).

Admitting France actual problems while denying imaginary ones seems to me to be a balanced approach and a worthy contribution to an encyclopedia.

The fact that blatantly inaccurate articles can survive untouched in Wikipedia is unfortunate. When I will find the time for this, I will maybe add a comment to the article itself (with proper sourcing) to show that NO LEGAL SEGREGATION SYSTEM exists in France.

Jeemde 10:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

A truly wonderful idea

“Allegations of French apartheid draw analogies between France and apartheid-era South Africa”

At last, an introductory sentence truly fitting for a serious, reliable encyclopedia ! Thank’s to this budding “Allegations of X country being the new apartheid South-Africa” series, to be followed, hopefully, by “Allegations of personnality X being the new Hitler”, Wikipedia should eventually break away from its previous image as a Pokemon and porn actresses thesaurus. Allow me to pay hommage to the geniuses who initiated this project. Watch your back, EB! Miuki 08:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge Notes into References, their redundancy and overlap is obfuscating

Thank you--Victor falk 15:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Your suggestion makes no sense. Notes reference specific items in the text, are often used more than once, and often include things like quotations. References alphabetically list all sources used in an article. They are not interchangeable. Please stop introducing these WP:POINT defacements of articles simply because you don't like them. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:06, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I didn't see that they had been edited since the AfD. Please assume good faith.--Victor falk 21:56, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

You inserted tags in both sections; did you not actually look at the sections you were tagging? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

He apologized, let the guy breathe! ;)--Cerejota 01:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

About the references, what do you think of these ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Africa_in_the_apartheid_era

"Apartheid (meaning separateness in Afrikaans, cognate to English apart and -hood) was a system of ethnic separation in South Africa from 1948, and was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990 to 1993, culminating in democratic elections in 1994.

The rules of Apartheid meant that people were legally classified into a racial group — the main ones being Black, White, Coloured and Indian — and were separated from each other on the basis of the legal classification. Blacks legally became citizens of one of ten bantustans (homelands) that were nominally sovereign nations. These homelands were created out of the territory of Black Reserves founded during the British Empire period -- Reserves akin to United States Indian Reservations, Canadian First Nations reserves, or Australian aboriginal reserves. Many Black South Africans never resided in these "homelands."

This prevented black people from having a vote in "white South Africa" (even if they resided there) -- their voting rights being restricted to the black homelands. Black homelands were economically the least productive areas in the country. Education, medical care, and other public services were segregated, and those available to Black people were inferior. The black education system, within "white South Africa", was designed to prepare blacks to be a working class."

And :

"PREAMBLE

The French people solemnly proclaim their attachment to the Rights of Man and the principles of national sovereignty as defined by the Declaration of 1789, confirmed and complemented by the Preamble to the Constitution of 1946, and to the rights and duties as defined in the Charter for the Environment of 2004.

By virtue of these principles and that of the self-determination of peoples, the Republic offers to the overseas territories that express the will to adhere to them new institutions founded on the common ideal of liberty, equality and fraternity and conceived with a view to their democratic development.

Article 1

France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs. It shall be organised on a decentralised basis."

http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/english/8ab.asp

I do not speak here of discrimination against coloured people, or muslims, which exists in France despite constitutional principles, what I want to point is that post 1958 an official apartheid policy is constitutionally impossible in France.

The problem is that some people use the word apartheid in an improper way to brand all kind of discrimination based on race or religion. Apartheid should only be used if there is a segregationist policy inscribed in the law.

This is obviously not the case in France.

There are a lot of associations for the defence of immigrants (legals or illegals) and they would not let pass any infrigement to the first article of the constitution without making a hell of noise and attacking France before the European Court of Justice (in case the French Parliement and Constitutional Council would let such an unconstitutional bill pass, which is highly unlikely).

Jeemde 10:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:OR.--Cerejota 12:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I am unfamiliar with Wikipedia's rules. As I said previously, I am a newcomer.

However, don't you think that citing "secondary sources" which are blatantly inaccurate to back an article is infriging Wikipedia:Verifiability?

If some people wrongly use a word to speak of a situation (here "apartheid" for French integration and discrimination problems), someone may gather their work and write an article like "allegation of French apartheid" in Wikipedia, based on secondary sources.

And nobody will ever be in position to contradict them because no serious scholar write about "the wrong use of the word apartheid to speak of France integration adn discrimination problems". Nobody does because it is not an issue except on Wikipedia...

The only way to adress the question for people who disagree with the article BECAUSE IT IS GROUNDED ON SOURCES WHICH USE APARTHEID IN AN INACCURATE WAY is to demonstrate this by logic. Which is what I try to do.

If you compare the definition of apartheid to the first article of the French constitution, you can only admit that apartheid is a wrong terminology to brand France's integration problems (which is an existing matter that should be developped in Wikipedia)

Jeemde 13:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to wikipedia then! I will try not to bite you...

Now, there is a key part about WP:V I love to quote: "Verifiability, not truth." Wikipedia is not about truth, at least not in the sense people usually mean it. It is ultimately about information that is notably, verifiably, and reliably covered by people. This information might be a total lie: however since a notable person, or a notable journal carries, it can be published in wikipedia.

This is because of the well-worn pehenomena of "one man's freedom figther is another one's terrorist". You might think these allegations are utter bollocks, and you might even be right. However, people who are more notable than you are making the allegations. So we have reasons to cover them. Since we cannot engage in original research, we cannot put caveats. The information is as-is. If you have a problem, the write a letter to the editors of Diplo or some such, not to us. We only represent what others say....

I am firmly in the camp of people who are opposed to removal of content. I might support a deletion of blatantly bad content, but in general I am more for merging or keeping content.--Cerejota 22:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that Wikipedia cannot remove an article because of somebody's personal opinion. However, I strongly disagree about keeping a total lie in Wikipedia because it is backed by a "more notable sources" than me. A lot of people write bullshit in books or essays... The better examples are the negationists who say that no concentration camp existed during WWII.

Of course, in this case, you will find a lot of studies treating of this phonomenon (the negationism) and decyphering it. This will allow Wikipedia to see what is the truth from what is the lie and at the end, only truth will prevail (which is, I hope the aim of that encyclopedia... otherwise we can stop talking, I will just go away and come back to my Universalis).

But just imagine that we are at the beginning of negationism. One universitarian publishes an article titled "concentration camp are a legend"; a journalist makes a detailed portrait of that book; two other people give a lecture about the exaggeration of the figures commonly admitted for the death toll in German concentration camp, etc. Then someone makes an article in Wikipedia, based on all these "notable sources"... Other people, either shocked by the article, or only ennoyed to see such a lie in their Encyclopedia try to get it modified. But they only have "primary sources" under the hand... they have photos of the camps taken by US liberating army, lists of dead people, witnesses; but they do not have any single article treating about "the negationist phenomenon" (since it was not an issue until then). If this imaginary Wikipedia article was written in a remote place, far from Europe where all these events took place, these people may face the same kind of problems to bring the truth forth. They may hear the same answers: maybe you are right and what says that article is a lie but its sources are more notable than you and we cannot delete them even if you bring evidence (primary sources); you may only want to settle your own agenda.

To come back to the "Allegation of French Apartheid" article, one could argue about the existence of an "apartheid like" system in France during the occupation of Algeria (I am not a specialist of that part of France's history), one can rightly say that France HAD an "apartheid like" system under the regime of Vichy (during WWII), but it is not true that France has an "apartheid like" system nowadays. The first article of the French constitution says that no difference whatsoever can be done between French citizens based on sexes, races and religion, which is the exact opposite of Apartheid.

It would be much more interesting to split that article and merge some part with other subjects (Algeria and Vichy period would fit better in an historic section, while current social problems should have their dedicated article).

Jeemde 11:10, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

That's what i tried to do, splitting, separating the Algerian part, and the modern part, proving at each step why this could be done. Now that this is done, maybe you could take a look at the arguments for the allegations of apartheid nowadays. Apart from the view of Tariq Ramadan, the two allegations are made by american journalists in a very conflicted time, speaking of relations between France and the US. (Iraq conflict, then the french coverage of Katrina, then the US coverage of the riots responding to it)

• I strongly encourage you, if you haven't yet, to read the article of Raplh Peters about the riots : I think that you can't say that it was written in a neutral and objective ways seeing all the attacks against France that are unrelated with the riots:
• The critic, for example, of the events of May 1968 couldn't be more wrong, ("the white-kids' tantrum of 1968, when spoiled brats rebelled against their parents.") since it led to fr:Accords de Grenelle (maximun of 40hours of work per week, minimum salary +25%), to the dissolution of the French National Assembly, and forced Général De Gaulle to abandon politics. It was indeed at first a wave of protests emerging from the students, criticizing the french educational system, but it then spread to the whole country, and the general strike, paralyzing France, forced the governement to act.
• Regarding this, i don't think that this source is reliable: even if some may consider the author as trust-worthy, i do believe that this article was written with some sort of anger, without checking its sources, and cannot really be taken into account. (However, i did not delete the mention of it in the article as you can see, i just tried to neutralize the reference to it)

About the other source, Harry Hutchison, you have to know that the labor contract he is mentionned was subject to maybe the most conflictuous debates for the five last years. There was a strong opposition, a lot of protests against it (see 2006 labour protests in France , and yet, some still would say that it would benefit our society. I'm not saying that what Pr. Hutchison is saying is wrong, i'm saying it is not as it seemed (The governement simply refused to apply a law that would benefit suburbian people). The governement first created it, but it raised so much opposition that they had to give up. It was not a deliberate political choice of the governement.

Then we have two sources not really neutral/reliable, and ONE source that might be taken seriously into account FOR the allegations. Look at how many sources are there in the Criticism paragraph ? I couldn't yet check the neutrality and the reliability of the sources, but still, the title of the article now seems a bit wrong: 2 or 3 sources for the allegations, plenty against. The AfD was denied, but, it should at least be renamed. NicDumZ ~ 11:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

The criticism links also say there is apartheid, but insist it is self-imposed. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Jayjg, if an "apartheid" is self imposed it is not apartheid.

Apartheid is a political and social system in which the rights of the citizens depend on their race (or religion).

If you have a country like TODAY's France, which says in the first article of its constitution "It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs" you cannot honestly use the word apartheid to describe the problems of racial discrimination, racism and self imposed segregation.

When someone has the French nationality, he or she benefits from all rights and responsabilities linked to it. The problem is that some of these rights are hard to actually achieve (like being elected for a black person), because of racism and intolerance.

I do not try to defend France here, to pretend there is no problems between the communities living there. What I say is that Apartheid is not the right word to speak of these difficulties.

I hope you will see the difference...

Jeemde 09:28, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

This article is unfit to appear in an encyclopedia

The bias is in the title. The title puts one side in a debate on the real topic (the amount and nature of racism in the country in question) on the back foot before the first word of text, and the neutrality of the article cannot be recovered after that catastrophic start. This article sets out to group together a group of slurs under the pretence that together they make an encyclopedic topic. This is no more the case than for "Allegations that French people smell". Or imagine other series of article built around usage of slurs in the media: Allegations that Tony Blair is a liar, Allegations that Angela Merkel is a liar, Allegations that Bill Clinton is a liar, or Allegations that Paris Hilton is a talentless bimbo, Allegations that Lindsay Lohan is a talentless bimbo, Allegations that .... is a talentless bimbo. All of those could be sourced, and the fact that something is sourced does not necessarily make it neutral or a legitimate subject for an encyclopedia. The quoting of sources on any article does not confirm that it complies with Wikipedia:Neutrality to the slightest degree; any biased essay can be fully sourced. No rephrasing or sourcing can make this article anything more than a politically motivated attack page. Wikipedia is not a place for debate or for arguing the toss. The presence of these articles disgraces Wikipedia. Dominictimms 13:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

You've posted the same thing to the article Allegations of Chinese apartheid, where I think you're wrong (though that article is sloppier and needs more work than this one).

However, in this case, you're right. Whatever problems France has with it's minorities, it's not because they operate apartheid, they don't. Apartheid may have existed in Algeria, but there is nothing to define people's religious or ethnic grouping in modern France. The important reason for having this article is elegantly explained here. PalestineRemembered 15:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Relevance

I'd like to discuus the relevance of this article.

Regardless of the subject or of the neutrality of it, the biggest problem of it to me, is that the whole article looks like a long list of different views of different authors about the subject. It would help a lot (especially about the neutrality problem !) to have a clear and concise article, a synthesis of the ideas which would rely on the different views of the authors.

The problem might come from the title of the article in itself, because allegations sort of refer to a list, but the AfD is over and it was decided that the article will not be renamed. Though i do not agree with that prospective, i'll try to do my best to combine all that quotes in something more simplet and easier to understand.

Also, try not to overquote. Some references are used twice or thrice. The result of this is that it seems that the subject is lacking of serious sources, and that for this reason, you use several times the same quote to make your point. A reader does not need to read thrice a quote for it to make its effect.

NicDumZ 18:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Regarding "overquotes", the reason almost all references are used twice in this article is because User:Rama refused to actually look at the sources, so they had to be repeated in the introduction. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

History of allegations

(I shall say that i absolutely disagree with the existence of that article. The least i can do is to try to correct as much as i can this article)

The fact the the native Algerians under colonial rule have been mistreated and marginalised, taken apart from the native French, coming to exploit the land is true. (see French_rule_in_Algeria#Hegemony of the Colons. but since it is not sourced, i would recommend : fr:Algérie#Époque Coloniale ) Some authors may have, writing about that time, used the word apartheid, and well, i do not discuss that fact.

• As sourced in the French article, the native Algerian could in theory ask through an administrative procedure the French Nationality, to get the same status as the colons, metropolitan-born. But the reality was different as fr:Patrick Weil, director of research of the CNRS wrote : Le statut des musulmans en Algérie coloniale : Une nationalité française dénaturée.
• About the riots which led to the use of urban apartheid. The rioters were youths, children of African and North-African immigrants (see French riots). As such, born in France, they had the French nationality (under the condition of having lived 5 years in France)

This is the first difference between the two "apartheids". In Algeria, the law and administrative procedures would ensure that Algerian would have a different status than French colons. Nowadays, people living in the suburbs and those living dans les quartiers chics have the same rights, because they have got the same nationality.

• Description of the colonial cities from "Postcolonial Urban Apartheid" : the colonial dual cities described by North African urban theorists Janet Abu-Lughod, Zeynep Çelik, Paul Rabinow, and Gwendolyn Wright-in which native medinas were kept isolated from European settler neighborhoods out of competing concerns of historical preservation, public hygiene, and security-'. There were so-called reason of historical preservation and public hygiene for the scheme of urbanization of Algerian cities. From the French article on Époque Coloniale : En marge de la société, (les indigènes) avaient rarement accès à l’enseignement. Leur culture et leurs langues étaient opprimées, les écoles indigènes ont été supprimées au profit d’écoles françaises en nombre très insuffisant. En 1929, 6 % seulement des enfants « indigènes » allaient à l’école primaire. Locals did not had proper access to school, because arab schools got closed and replaced by too fewer French schools. As a result, only 6% of the children in age were going to primary school.
• The building of fr:Grand ensembles responding to a need of comfort and hygiene for the newcoming Pied-noirs who began to settle at the outsides of the French big cities. (But also for blue collars who, at the time, lived in poor conditions). A Grand Ensemble provides not also housing, but medical care, education facities and commercial centers. (Yves LACOSTE, "Un problème complexe et débattu : les grand ensembles", Bulletin de l'association des géographes français, n°318-319, 1963)

Here is the second difference between the two. In one hand we have a part of a population who is clearly indésirable, neighborhoods are being separated in purpose under cover of false reasons, schools are being closed, resulting in a low proportion of children being educated, as an aim to prevent them from occupying high qualified jobs (Vive la nation!, Yves Lacoste, éd Fayard, 1998). In other hand we have an urbanization plan, as a response to a demographic problem, willing to ensure that all have access to public school and medical care.

We must clearly separate the Algerian apartheid and the urban apartheid. I will apply myself to remove all links between those two different apartheids. I would also suggest that since the Algerian apartheid is already studied in the French rule in Algeria article, we should concentrate only on the urban apartheid. NicDumZ ~ 17:30, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You cannot remove what noted academics write about a topic simply because you disagree with them. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:OR and WP:SOAPBOX. Thanks!--Cerejota 12:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Please, i'm not one of these beginners. I know WP guidelines. (Read my userpage, i'm an experienced wp:fr user) Please state what you think is wrong, or mis-sourced in my comments here, and i'll try to help. NicDumZ ~ 12:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Read carefully what you wrote: in essence it is a short essay on what you believe to be true. No reliable sources, no verifiability, no notability, no nothing. You are introducing a novel narrative that doesn't flow from sources. That, mon ami, is OR and soapboxing! Even experienced editors do mistakes and need to be reminded from time to time (including myself!). So please don't assume that others are not reading what you write and contribute. However, do assume they are smart people who are as well read as you are, who can spot an attempt at building original narratives from a mile away. :D--Cerejota 15:07, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right for now. The problem with this is that no articles were ever wrote about the existence or the non-existence of that link. It seems that the author just made the link because of the word apartheid, or maybe because of the confusion between the fact that Pied-noirs were coming back from Algeria at the time when fr:Grand ensembless started. erm... I will try. But that's really hard. I will also source the rest of my writings, but it seems that it is not really the core of the problem. NicDumZ ~ 15:56, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I tried another approach. Since i won't ever find an article Why are urban apartheid and Algerian apartheid unliked ?, I tried to point out the differences between them, sourcing my writings. NicDumZ ~ 17:30, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Still OR. The only thing we can do, unless a seocndary source speaks about it, is provide sourcing abotu they obvious are: allegation of aparheid. Everything else is a novel narrative, not supported by secondary sources, hence OR. Thanks!--Cerejota 20:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, i don't understand this. I Sourced all of my writings.

• About the first difference, i'm using a source from a very well know scientist, Patrick Weil, and the fact, written in the french constitution, about french nationality.
• About the second, i'm relying on fr:wp articles, sourced, and on the book of Yves Lacoste.
• In which way can't this be taken into account ??

I'm only talking about the link here. Can you say that what i write is wrong ? No. Can you, in the opposide side, prove that Urban apartheid and Algerian apartheid are linked (or find sources telling so ? ) ? No.

It seems then that the link has no reason to be mentionned in the article. NicDumZ ~ 20:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

All sources used must refer directly to "apartheid". Otherwise it's original research. Is that more clear? Oh, and Silverstein & Tetreault directly link the Algerian situation to the current situation in France. You know this, of course, since you deleted that reference, based on your personal opinion that they weren't really linked. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, i did, you have a point. But we can talk about this, I had reasons to do so, which you may think were false, but i tried working seriously on that article. We may debate on that specific link later, if you'd like to.

But about all my other work, please don't get this personnal. You may think that I'm wrong with the link-thing, and as i said we can debate about this. But it is not a reason to revert all my other changes !, which are not related to the link ?!.

• Why did you removed my references about the Ralph Peters article ? The article he wrote was not neutral, was it ? Don't you think the WP article should mention it ? I just added material from HIS article, material that prove that sometimes he wrote wrong things. It does not prove that about apartheid he was wrong, I do not say that the source is irrelevant, otherwise i would have removed it, but it's about neutrality, once again ! ( "Does anyone really believe that the country that enthusiastically handed over more of its Jewish citizens to the Nazis than the Nazis asked for is going to treat brown or black Muslims as equals?" IS THIS ARTICLE NEUTRAL ? PLEASE !!! You can't innocently rely on a source like this on a such controversial article. )
• Why did you removed my explanation of the context of the article of Huchison ? ( "The law though was very unpopular among the french students and unions, and faced very strong protests and strikes in February, March, and April 2006, which forced the government to rescind the amendment.") CPE has been a controversial issue, and the government faced pressures about that subject, which means that it did not chose the issue on itself. As you may read it, the law was rescended because of the protests. Still, if the law was created, it is because politicals though that it would be good for a certain part of the population. Why do you think than one side shall have the right to appear in this article, and not the other ? Is it about neutrality. Read 2006 labour protests in France, [1][2] [3] [4], this is not unsourced material.
• Please explain your modifications about the beginning of Criticism. You can read a quote from the co-author of the law who says that the aim of it is to avoid apartheid-like situations. Yet, you remove my part, because it's original research ? Just read the quote !

I do not agree with the fact stated in that article, YOU ARE RIGHT. But i tried to work as seriously as i could, quoting everyting i could, linking to other WP articles, quoting from the referenced articles. Please do not revert all my changes just because you think i did them because of my views of the subject. Also, if you'd like to work on this article, i'd be happy to. But please do not just revert the changes like this. I spend hours trying to neutralize on that article, i hope you understand what was my reaction when i saw that you barely just reverted everything. NicDumZ ~ 09:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

NicDumZ, WP:NOR is clear; you can't make up your own arguments to refute things you don't like in an article. Instead, you must quote what other people say on the topic. The sources in this article must refer to "apartheid" in France, or "apartheid" instituted by France. You cannot bring in a whole bunch of other sources that don't refer to "apartheid" in order to construct a counter-argument, instead you must bring sources that directly refer to the topic of this article, which is "Allegations of apartheid". So, for example, you can't try to refute Ralph Peters arguments inventing arguments of your own, nor can you claim the article is "sardonic" based on your own analysis of what he is saying. Quote sources, don't invent arguments. And certainly do not delete a source simply because you disagree with its argument. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Please, i don't "just invent OR arguments", i try to add some neutrality to the article. (oh and please do not remove the {{npov}} unless we are both done here). You tell me all i say it WP:OR, fine. I tell you Ralph Peters's article is mostly non-WP:NPOV, - maybe because of Anti-French sentiment in the United States. Right ? Then, WP:OR and WP:NPOV are both fundamental Wikipedia principles, you removed my contribs telling it was OR. Did I remove yours arguing it is not NPOV ? No, I just corrected you a little typo. Then, please help me instead of just trying to oppose me.

There are enough non-NPOV quotations in Raplh Peters article to consider it as non-NPOV (Yeah, the references you removed). Still, he is mentionned as the third author in the article, without any precisions about the fact that he is POV. Please help about this then !! NicDumZ ~ 07:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not really sure what you're saying. I didn't remove your {{npov}} tag, and you didn't just "correct a little typo", you also modified a direct quote. Peters does indeed have a POV, but including his POV in this article does not violate WP:NPOV; on the contrary, so long as we make clear that is it Peters' opinion, which we do, then we are abiding completely by WP:NPOV. Inserting your own theories about Peters' work, on the other hand, is a gross violation of WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. Your "adding neutrality to the article" has so far consisted of inventing arguments against stuff you don't like, or deleting it outright. You need to stop doing that, and instead find other people's arguments, not your own, as I have done. Jayjg ^(talk) 07:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry about the direct quote, didnt see it was one, on the moment. I just did that because social exclusion is not the translation of social apartheid. whatever, i was wrong.

About {{npov}}, Cerejota removed it because there was {{ActiveDiscuss}}, which you removed [5]. (I wasn't blaming you)

About Raplh Peters, i don't think that adding references of his work is OR, is it ? Sure, you can discuss the sardonic word. You can say that adding that adding "althought May_1968 was a major turn in french politics" was wrong, but you could have let something like "about May 1968 : ...(quote)", and readers, going to the link, would find the obvious by themselves. And yes please stop saying i'm inventing arguments... "althought May_1968 was a major turn in french politics" is a striking proof of WP:POV I did, but it is WP:V. Just look at the article, De Gaulle had to resign. NicDumZ ~ 07:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, actually, adding "references of his work" and then drawing conclusions from that is the very definition of OR. Regarding the material you added, I'm a little concerned about the quality. The first was fair, but the second was a blog, and the third didn't even refer to apartheid. Also, you can't generalize from one individual to a large group; if a Senator is objecting to something, then he is objecting to it, not some large unnamed group of people. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Well this (« We are tempted to say, regarding to the strong CPE protests, that this so-called answer to suburban youth illness is a shocking and unsuitable one, stigmatizing a whole social class ») is about the suburban social exclusion we're dealing with in this article, isn't it ? Also, about Senator not being a party : In French senate, when coming to debating a law, each party elect someone to represent them, Hence instead of debating with 320 Senators, they have a debate with ~10 Senators; it's far easier to understand every arguments. So, in this particular view, a Senator, elected as "group leader" (since, according to senate debates, he spoke, didnt he ?) DO represent the view of its party. And if you were able to read French; you would understand that the senate debate was about how the measures recently taken by the ministers (against riots, and the CPE being under discussions) were unfit: some mentioned that it would in particular seclude suburban youth from others. The blog was about the link between the debate and the term apartheid. I'll rewrite all this when i have time. NicDumZ ~ 06:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Again, all of this is original research; we must present what the sources say, not our own conclusions regarding the way the Senate runs. Also, blogs are generally not considered to be reliable sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Now that i have time, I searched the web for sources about left-wing party being against CPE, since i know you won't even believe me on this. Template:Fr Text of the censure motion against CPE law. (Even without understanding it, searcing for 'CPE' will do ) Vote on Febr 26, 06 of this motion : [6] . It was rejected (178 voted for, req. majority to adopt it was of 289), but look at the figures (seats # from this list and cat deputee_list | grep SOC | wc -l ):

• Groupe Socialiste : 150 seats, 150 voted for.
• Groupe Communistes et Républicains : 22 seats, 22 voted for.

Looking at List of political parties in France#Nationwide parties, you can tell that all the major left-wing parties voted for the motion of censure.

I hope you're with me now on this one.

I'm going to add again the part about CPE you removed. Please improve it if you don't like it, do not not delete it. Thanks. NicDumZ ~ 19:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

So, you're drawing conclusions based on your research regarding voting patterns? Can you not see how this is original research? And, if nothing else, could you please put quotations in quotation marks, as is done on every single article on English Wikipedia (including this one) rather than the odd "»" marks you have been using? Jayjg ^(talk) 20:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

WP rules

"The problem with this is that no articles were ever wrote about the existence or the non-existence of that link" - I strongly support that sentence...

I am a beginner, right, and I do not know well Wikipedia's rules. But there is one thing which seems important to me : If Wikipedia wants to be considered as an encyclopedia it cannot CREATE subjects which are not existing. And this is the risk if that article is kept as it is.

In our specific case, the journalists or writers used the word apartheid to name a situation which is different. They did that either because they do not know what apartheid really means or because they wanted to summarize in a single word an aspect of the situation (separation of the communities in a country). In this case it is more a "mataphoric use" of the word Apartheid.

The inadequate or metaphoric use of a word loaded by a precise meaning is minor and there is no academic writing over THIS phenomenon.

Then, by following strictly Wikipedia's rules (as stated by Cerjota and Jayig), there is no way to contradict this article (no secondary source), even if a dispassioned scholar, who would use the primary source would come to the conclusion that there is no apartheid (in its real meaning) in nowadays France.

This is a very big flaw in Wikipedia, in my view.

Jeemde 08:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

This might be true, but the place to debate this is WP:OR, not here.

However, you do make an interesting point: there is no way to contradict this article (no secondary source), even if a dispassioned scholar, who would use the primary source would come to the conclusion that there is no apartheid (in its real meaning) in nowadays France. Precisely the point! Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. We care little if the allegations are true, as long as reliable, verifiable, and notable sources speak about it, then they are in. We cannot create a narrative without secondary sources. This is why we trust our readers to make their own minds.

Strange concept, huh? Trusting readers to be smart?--Cerejota 12:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

"We care little if the allegations are true, as long as reliable, verifiable, and notable sources speak about it". In this case, naming Wikipedia an encyclopedia seems to be inappropriate don't you think?

If, when I search for an information in Wikipedia about a topic I am unfamiliar with, I have to do a full scope research and read all the sources (when they are given) to check if this is true or if it is just a compilation of inaccurate material published by "notable" people (who decide they are notable by the way?)I cannot consider anymore Wikipedia as a reliable source.

OK, readers can make their own mind but the aim of Wikipedia should be to give notable AND TRUE information.

Jeemde 17:51, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's how wikipedia works. About undoubtedly questionable/non-neutral sources, the article has to mention the problem. For a stupid example, in an article about history, if you say something basing yourself on sources well-known as negationist sources, well, the very least that will happen is that in the bibliography, a warning will be added. If there are some little doubts on the accuracy of the source, we will add why the article seems to be maybe biased. WP is an encyclopedic project, but it doesn't mean that all it says it's true. See Wikipedia:General disclaimer. As per every other media, you have to check the sources of the content. NicDumZ ~ 18:13, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Jeemde, you are entirely correct: Wikipedia doesn't consider itself a reliable source under WP:RS, and probably never will.

Encyclopedias have never been meant as the sole source of information about anything, or even authoritative sources, and Wikipedia takes care of sourcing everything in part to allow people to engage a topic more deeply. Even prestigious encyclopedias, like Encyclopedia Britanica are to be handled with care, and are sometimes even less reliable than wikipedia!!! [7] I think that you misunderstand the purpose of general encyclopedias and almanacs in general and of wikipedia in the specific: they are neither the last word, nor authoritative in their own.

However, we do have quality standards, and a set of rules. A good starting point to understand wikipedia is to read the five pillars of wikipedia and then follow the policies into their own pages. Thanks!--Cerejota 11:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Cerejota, I know that no encyclopedia can be considered as 100% reliable. To see how twisted the reality can be, even in mainstream publications like French "Larousse", one should read an old version of the encyclopedia (I had access to the 1935 edition)... The information you find in it is often a reflection of the time and society in which it has been written.

However, I think that despite their authors' bias, encyclopedias always try to bring the most accurate information to their readers; at least when it come to facts.

Wikipedia is a very interesting project because no national bias can stand for long because the contributors come from all over the world. On the other hand, accuracy of the data cannot be as good because contributors are not always specialists of the field thay are treating (which is quite obvious in the "Allegation of French Apartheid article").

This structural weakness does not mean that the "Wikipedian community" should not strive to give the best information possible to its readers, and try to better the published materials' accuracy.

As long as we talk of opinions: 'can we qualify French rule in Algeria "apartheid"?' or 'is the word "apartheid" rightly used to qualify the current situation in French suburbs?' you can tell me: there are "notable" sources who thinks the answer is yes so it should stay in Wikipedia. The discussion should then be brought on the degree of notability of the sources.

But when we talk of facts, like 1+1=2, there is no place to various interpretations. Facts should be accurately reported and if not they should be deleted.

This article can well be kept in Wikipedia if some people think it is worthy enough, but it should not keep its delusive title. See the facts: apartheid in its precise meaning is a separation of the racial communities set by the law of the country... and France constitution first article makes it impossible in that country.

Let's discuss the "apartheid like" situation in France after saying that apartheid is used in a broader meaning (racial separation) and not in its real meaning.

Jeemde 09:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Factual title

I see this article was moved to "urban apartheid in France" [8] (and back in a jaygiffy!;).

While this is more correct, the subject it covers is known as commonly known as "exclusion sociale". There is an article on the French wikipedia: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusion_sociale (eng). While of not so good quality, other related fr.wiki articles are: Banlieues,Le Ghetto français, Politique de la ville en France, Émeutes de 2005 dans les banlieues françaises (eng 1, eng 2), violences urbaines(a featured article), sociologie urbaine.

I'd be more than happy to help translate and transwiki them, but I think that one who believes that what Racine calls "exclusion sociale" is spelled "allegations of apartheid" by Shakespeare has, pardon my French, lost a couple of marbles in translation(:.. --Victor falk 19:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Let's change the name of the article to "exclusion sociale" then or whatever is more correct. "Allegations of French apartheid" is a ridiculous title since there is no such term as "French apartheid" and since these aren't "allegations" but an acknowledged social problem. -- LOTHAR

Given the explosive and controversial nature of these articles, and the many different debates regarding them, it's best to get consensus on these things before they are attempted. There is a central page for discussing all these issues, and that is where they should be dealt with. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the need for linkage, the most correct title should apply regardless of conflicts in other articles. --LOTHAR

The correct title is "allegations of French apartheid", since that's what this article is about. The sources don't talk about "social exclusion". Jayjg ^(talk) 20:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There are no sources that talk about "French apartheid". -- LOTHAR

<irony>Nah we can't change the title, coz' when we type French apartheid in google we have secondary WP:RS that mention the problem.</irony>. Sorry. Seriously, the fact is some authors used that term. And... Well. If they used it, in the views of the creators of this articles, and, sadly, regarding to WP rules, talking about French apartheid is right. I think that the only think you can do if you (we) disagree with the quoted authors is to try to find authors who share your point and to confront all the Point of Views...

But the hard thing, and the problem with the title in my view, is that it must be related, in one way or in another, to the term apartheid ! We can't have a fair article about exclusion because it is entitled allegations of apartheid. Then, all information not linked with apartheid has nothing to do with it. And from that view, since i don't think that we'll find one day an article about how using the term apartheid for describing the social situation in France is maladroit-unfit-exaggerated, the only content that there will ever be in this article will be FOR the thesis of an apartheid in France. We all learned about thesis and anti-thesis in school, I think that maybe the only reason that would justify renaming it would be this one : This title does not allow any possible criticism of the thesis presented in the article.

I think i tried to be fair and moderated on this one, thinking about WP rules, and so on. What do you think, Jayjg ?

PS: Lothar, please wait for a consensus before doing anything. Renaming an article is not a common thing you can do without asking anyone.

NicDumZ ~ 21:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course the titles allow criticism of the thesis. In fact, this particular article has more criticism of the thesis than actual exposition of it, so I'm not sure how you got that idea. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Jay, that's somewhat because people started with the title rather than the material itself. What is the thesis discussed in this article? What you're calling criticism is of course nothing more than a number of people independently alleging apartheid against other groups. This will have to be cleared up at one point or another, which indeed leaves the original problem that essentially nobody has responded to any of these claims. Mackan79 14:33, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, Mackan wrote it perfectly. You know I wasn't talking of a critic as a debate on which apartheid do really characterize the French apartheid, or on which facts are, according to the authors, the reasons of the apartheid. I was talking of a real answer. I wrote it, you read it ; you're not stupid, you understood it. ("how using the term apartheid for describing the social situation in France is maladroit-unfit-exaggerated"). What the.... ? NicDumZ ~ 16:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Mackan, the thesis in this article (as expressed by the sources) is that French government policies systemically discriminate against Africans/North Africans/Muslims, excluding them from French society, in a way that mirrors South African apartheid, that this began in French Algeria, and was carried over into France itself after France de-colonized. The main counter-argument presented (again as expressed by the sources) is that what appears to be systemic government "apartheid" is actually self-imposed by these communities, particularly by Islamists among them. A third counter-argument is that government policies have actually reduced Islamism. This in turn has a counter argument presented, that attempts to blame Islamists are wrong, that the issue here really is government policies. A fourth criticism is that the term "apartheid" itself is over-blown. It's actually quite complete, and more than half the articles is devoted to responses and counter-arguments to these claims. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:53, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that, as far as I can tell, none of your "critics" are actually responding to the narrative you just laid out (and which I'm unclear that anyone has laid out before you). Instead they were chosen solely because they use the word "apartheid" in other contexts. That's fine for relevance to the article, but doesn't equal a response. It does constitute original synthesis, which leaves, again, a list of unaddressed statements. Mackan79 18:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The literal application of Wikipedia's rules, instead of seeking compliance to their spirit appears to me quite stubborn. It seems that the only goal of some "followers" of the article is to keep the title "Allegation of French Apartheid" even if it is crystal clear that there is NO CONSENSUS on that. If the aim is to give some interesting material about racial problems in France, why fighting so fiercely to keep those four words unchanged?

I want to point one problem arising from the literal application of the rules. The editor who writes an article will always prevail over the editor who disagrees with him in case of stalemate (like in the AFD). Because if their is no consensus over the removal of the article, the article will stay... same for the title.

To me, the [WP:xx] appeals that you brandish all the time are less and less meaningful each time you lead them astray. There is another agenda behind the whole thing and everyone feel it. The continuing strife over that controversial title is doing no good to Wikipedia's credibility...

I strongly support the proposals for renaming. And then, some truly meaningful material may be added to the article (what is France specific treatment of racial problems? how does that country react to the growing immigration pressure? What are the specialists evaluation of the current situation in the suburbs? etc. etc.)

Jeemde 14:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I'm just simply amazed when you speak of these debates. I'd really like to write, find sources on it. I do support that proposal !! Writing on a wide subject would be way more interesting ; Besides, the current article with this title seems a bit limited. Of course we can work on style, finding more accurate sources, but barely anything has been said. To me it would have a better place in a wider and more complete article about ... well... French Social issues... or French social exclusion... NicDumZ ~ 14:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a systemic issue here; there are a series of "Allegations of apartheid in country X" articles that would all suffer from the same problems you are describing. The oldest, and by far the largest, is Allegations of Israeli apartheid. It would make sense to crack that nut first; the solution to that would provide a template for how to deal with the other similarly named articles. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, i don't give a damn about Allegations of Israeli apartheid. Pure WP:IDONTKNOWIT & WP:IDONTCARE. And also, I don't care if you think that we should treat the Israeli apartheid before this one.: I'm working on this one, now, and I will not take into account any arguments of that kind. ("This other article should be treated first", or "all of this have already been told about this other article"). If YOU want to work on another article before this one, fine, it's up to you, but I will not. I will not, I repeat, I WILL NOT step into that WP:POINT about the Israeli article.

But i will do everything I can do to improve this article. And for now, my aim is to rename it, to get a wider article about the suburban problems in France, and not anymore a pamphlet of an other Allegations of X article.

Since, apparently, we all agree that renaming it would be the thing to do here (you Jay, seem to share this point, even if you'd like too see the Israeli article treated first, don't you ? ), I think that we should move on and try to get a consensus about a new name. What do you think, all of you ? NicDumZ ~ 20:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

No, of course we don't all agree the article should be re-named. Many people, including me, think the article name, as it currently is, is the best representation for the contents of the article. The references are all about French apartheid, so you can't change the topic to something else. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:11, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that these "apartheids" have virtually nothing in common except that you have decided to artificially create a connection by calling them all "Allegations of...apartheid". One major difference is that terms like "French apartheid" are completely made up. There is literature on "urban apartheid" or "social exclusion" in France but very little if any referring to "French apartheid" where, on the other hand, the term "Israeli apartheid" or "Israel apartheid" is quite common. Therefore, giving these two articles similar names is completely arbitrary and artificial. The other problem is we're dealing with quite different concepts. Having tourist-only resorts and hotels in Cuba is a completely different concept from the marginalization of Arab immigrants in France or from separating men and women in Saudi Arabia. Just because you have artificially inflicted a name template on these articles doesn't mean they are at all about similar things or that the solution is to give them yet another set of similar names. It might serve your interests in regards to so-called "Israeli apartheid" to have a set of similarly named articles which you argue must all be treated in a cookie cutter fashion but it doesn't serve the interests of an encyclopedia. The most practical and efficient solution is to treat each article on its own mertis and give it the name most appropriate to its content or to the concept it is trying to address, not to impose a manufactured one size fits all template. Lothar of the Hill People 19:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

People use the epithet "apartheid" for all sorts of things, though underlying it is an accusation of discrimination of some sort. However, that's not really my issue; they accuse Brazil of apartheid for one kind of activity, Cuba for a different kind, China for several more, Israel for several more. Here we just document what the sources say. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:11, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Surely, though, the sources are using apartheid as a rhetorical analogy for various types of social and economic exclusion rather than making a specific charge that the French government is engaged in systematic discrimination. -- ChrisO 22:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if you read the sources, they in fact specifically charge the government with engaging in discriminatory "separation", which is one reason proponents view the analogy as so apt. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Jayjg, you are now speaking in bad faith. If a newspaper like l'Humanité (communist) says that "government policies are creating social apartheid" it does not mean that French government is making laws to force people to live in separate place but that the social impact of the new laws (made in favor of the richest) will bring a greater rift between the riches and the poors... That is what they call social apartheid. It is an image to strike the mind of the reader not really an apartheid policy.

I will give an example of the kind of policies that l'Humanite would brand as "social apartheid":

A law called "Loi Gayssot" states that each city over a certain size should build 20% of HLM (Habitation à Loyer Modéré - subsidized housing) in its new construction programs.

Most the rich cities' mayors prefer to pay high fines instead of building subsidized programs bacause their voters are not be delighted to see poor families coming next door.

And some deputies try hard to get that law dumped or reduced to nothing... and it is this kind of action that l'Humanité would brand as social apartheid policy.

http://www.humanite.fr/2007-01-10_Societe_-En-finir-avec-l-apartheid-en-matiere-de-logement

You cannot seriously compare this with South African Apartheid... This is only a scheme.

Jeemde 00:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Jayjg here, for three main reasons, which I'll outline:

• Precedent exists, on the Israeli apartheid allegations article, to group all types of allegations together. Is there any rational connection between an anti-Zionist claiming that Israel is an "apartheid state" and Carter claiming that Israel is democratic, but there is an apartheid-like situation in the West Bank, outside of Israel proper? If not, then why is that article (which has been here for a longer time than this one) not split?

• Social or urban apartheid would limit the scope of this article. This article should inform people on rhetoric, in this case, the comparison between south africa and france.

• There is no apartheid outside of South Africa, and there never has been. This page is about (in my opinon, false) political allegations and rhetoric, and makes no claim of accuracy to these allegations.

As a sidenote, ChrisO, pleease don't abuse your administrator privelleges as you did earlier, to effectively lock dissenting users from editing against you in a page conflict you were involved in.--Urthogie 00:21, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I strongly support Urthogie's every word. Good points, well said. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 01:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Ahah. Wonderful. The two creators of the apartheid X articles coming there in a hurry to support the third one after my contrib in centralized discussion. As I said it before. 5But of course, you didn't read my arguments, did you ?) I that I won't take into account arguments that compare the Israeli article and this one. There is a strong deadlock overthere, it's been ages. Don't let this happen here. Unless you have original arguments, specific to the French article, please do not try to import this conflict here. Thanks a lot. NicDumZ 06:00, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

What I understand in Urthogie's intervention is that the author of the article himself knows that there is no actual apartheid in France and admits that "This page is about (in my opinon, false) political allegations and rhetoric, and makes no claim of accuracy to these allegations". The title is then clearly misleading.

Jeemde 07:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the name of this article should remain as is pending a comprehensive solution to the "apartheid" naming issue. I can understand the perspective of those on this page who have not been involved with the "other" articles. I suspect that if I were one of them, I would have a difficult time with this myself. However, this is all unfortunately part of a larger issue. If it is ok to have articles about apartheid or allegations of apartheid outside of the South African context, then this article (regrettably) has enough about that subject to at least meet the minimum standards for an article. As I have said many times, I think it is not ok, that is why I have advocated for "apartheid" to be a "word to avoid" in article titles (excluding South Africa, obviously.) But one country should not be singled out, and renaming this article under the current circumstances would be a step (back) to singling out one country. 6SJ7 17:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that because you disagree with the existence of Allegations of Israeli apartheid you support the creation and existance of a series of other articles named "Allegations of... apartheid" so that Israel isn't singled out? Your advocating subverting the quality of wikipedia in order to satisfy a propaganda objective of one particular country that you are a supporter of ie if you can't eliminate the "Israeli apartheid" accusation you can at least soften it by making sure as many other countries as possible are accused of the same thing. That's a very disruptive agenda and it is completely at odds with the goals of wikipedia. Anyway, I'm not suggesting deleting this article or even removing "apartheid" from the name necessarily but renaming it something more appropriate like "Urban apartheid in France" ie call it by a phrase that's actually in use, not a made up phrase you want to use so that the article looks more like Israel's so that Israel doesn't stand out. Lothar of the Hill People 21:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Please avoid begging the question; it's not a good idea to invent arguments on 6SJ7's behalf, and then respond as if he had actually made them. The central discussion area is the place to explore exactly what kinds of titles are encyclopedic and appropriate for Wikipedia. 6SJ7's point is that this title and article is certainly no less appropriate than the others, including "Allegations of Israeli apartheid". And if yoru concern is with "disruption", and you insist on singling out one article, it would make sense to deal with the worst of the lot first, "Allegations of Israeli apartheid" - it's an horribly written monstrosity that has created 100 times more disruption on Wikipedia than the rest of the articles combined. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Would it be a WP:OTHERSTUFF ? Sorry, I'm trying to work on this one Jay, please stop trying to hijack the discussion here. (oh sorry, I'm assuming things on your behalf, since surely, you're willing to work efficiently on this one : ) referring to the Israeli article to argue against renaming this one. There's no solid reason to say that this one shouldn't be renamed because nobody managed to find a successful name for the Israeli article. Things have to be sorted out. If you'd prefer to sort out the Israeli article before, fine, but it's not a valid argument here against my proposition. NicDumZ ~ 06:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I found Social situation in the French suburbs yesterday ; This article is good, but a bit inaccurate and unbalanced. What about merging the content here into this one ? AoFa is only about Social situation in the French suburbs, isn't it ? NicDumZ ~ 06:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the WP:AFD failed, and there was no decision to merge. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The AfD result was no consensus. I did not took part in it. And AFDs are not the places to decide wether an article should be merged or not, and you perfectly know. Stop pushing me around hijacking every attempt I do to work on this article, please. NicDumZ ~ 19:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Is there anything in this article that doesn't fit in "social situation in the French suburbs"? If not they should be merged. Lothar of the Hill People 07:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Any proposal that will remove or lessen the focus on "apartheid name calling", while focusing on sociological and demographical data is good. The first priority is to change the title. The second priority is to organise these contents in relation with connected Wikipedia contents. Teofilo talk 10:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Related article up for deletion

Allegations of Chinese apartheid, which is another of Urthogie's creations, is currently up for deletion. Editors here may wish to have a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allegations of Chinese apartheid. -- ChrisO 07:37, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

concerning POV

This POV is invalid. Allegations for French apartheid, doesn't matter how weak, are valid. 10% of total population or more in France are Arabs (diverse ethnic group), and there is this new government's policy enforcing Arab schoolgirls to pretend to be someone else to be allowed to enter a public school. Now, wearing Arafat style headgear is not necessarily a religious symbol, it's tradition. That's enough for the analogy. greg park avenue 15:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Sarcam ? Did you say sarcasm ?NicDumZ ~ 18:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

He's quite serious. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't think so.

1. Racial figures are forbidden in France. Hence there is no way to know how many "arabs" there are in France.
2. "wearing Arafat style headgear is not necessarily a religious symbol, it's tradition". Well, I think I'm going to add that big flag in front of my house . Me ? Nazi ? Come on, it's an hindu tradition...
3. More seriously. Laïcité. That's the only issue here. You may disagree with this founding principle of the French republic, but it cannot seriously be considered as a token of apartheid. According to this principle, public schools ought to exclude any religious signs, to preach for tolerance ("you see, we are all equals in that school"), and to protect children as long as we can against prejudices. Period. NicDumZ ~ 19:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The French law prohibiting blatant religious signs in public shool can hardly be considered as apartheid; you can tell that this law impacts the freedom of a part of the population but to qualify it you should consider its aim, not its side effects.

1. This law is not apartheid because the main objective is NOT to separate people because of their religion but to ERASE THE DIFFERENCES between them.

2. This law is not apartheid because it applies to all religions and not only to Islam (jews with the kippas, sikhs with the turbans, christians with big crosses around their necks, etc.). The fact that some religions are more strict than others upon wearing outward signs is a side effect. If the aim was to set an apartheid situation, muslim girls would be bannished from the schools explicitly (this was the case in South Africa, blacks were not allowed in white schools).

3. This law is not apartheid because it has nothing to do about races or origins. A muslim girl can be born in Casablanca, Damasacus or Peshawar as well as in Paris, Lyon or Marseille. It is not the "arabs" or the "blacks" who will be prevented to wear headscarves but all the muslim girls. On the other hand, muslims who are not practicing (they are a lot in France) will not see any change in their life (even if they are arabs or blacks).

3. This law is not apartheid because the girls who really want to keep their veils have the option to go in private schools. Some are more expensive than public schools (not all of them), and they may be far away from home... but this option exists. The teatching is exactly the same (it may even be better) and leads to the same baccalauréat as the public schools. With it, everybody can go in university with or without headscarf (the law only bannish blatant signs from SCHOOL).

4. Would you say that Turkey (a country which is 99% Muslim) is implementing an Apartheid policy over its own population because it bannishes headscarves from ANY school or university?

I do not agree with this French law because it is clearly making the life more difficult for a category of the population: the "believers". And no one can say in good faith that Islam was not the primary target. However, this is not "apartheid".

Of course these explanations will be discarded with disain because they're primary source ;-)

Jeemde 19:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm pretty sure that Jay will call for WP:OR here. We'll have to source every statement emitted on to talk page to eventually prove him he's wrong. And then he won't answer anymore, or only with personal attacks or bad faith.

Sorry, I'm tired with this. Jay, I never saw you, in all these debates, admit that you were wrong, even on an issue without importance. I lost faith. NicDumZ ~ 21:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, if you're so smart, look at this picture

and tell me what's wrong with that scarf/headgear, with the exception of the portable pallet of course? Just in case, I don't know if the images are allowed on the talk page, you can click on this. greg park avenue 21:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Please calm down. This picture is not wrong to me. However, a girl wearing this in a French school would surely contrast with other girls ; she would be considered as "special". I'm not saying, and I never said, that the "special" adjective meant "wrong". As Jeemday wrote it, this law (and the school in a more global way) is meant to erase as much as it can differences between people. Religious differences, social differences, and so on. Some countries use school uniforms to get to this result, well France issued a law. Yet, I'm not sure that whether England should face hippie apartheid allegations for using school uniforms to prevent little boys and girls from wearing their flower-power gear. NicDumZ ~ 21:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

In American high, as bad as those are, no one would even bother to give her a second look. So, what's wrong with the French education system? Instead of fighting islamism, which is blooming in France, you guys go after the little girls now. In New York we used to say sarcasticaly about this new Frech politics and the "peace program": "Give cheese a chance" or "Fight plaque, not Iraq". Wanna more? greg park avenue 22:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I said, you may disagree with theses principles, every country has its traditions. However, it is not a reason to write here your sarcasms about this system. NicDumZ ~ 22:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Those sarcasms are not mine, I borrowed it from schoolchildren and I can prove it. Never mind. Now I give you my own opinion which is: This new law about schoolchildren scarfs is the most stupid thing France ever did since the infamous year of 1793. Someone named Robespierre and his law concerning suspects rings a bell? If it doesn't I recommend Paul Feval and his (or his son's) novel "Le chevalier Lagardère". greg park avenue 23:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, fine. Whatever. For what it's worth, the novel is entitled. Le chevalier De Lagardère. NicDumZ ~ 09:51, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

@greg park avenue. You obviously talk about a topic you don't know. We don't care about your opinion. Wikipedia isn't the place to express it. If you want to do it or do some low level French bashing, open a blog so you'll be able to write absolutely meaningless articles nobody will read. Poppypetty 23:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Try to focus your opinions more on the topics of the article, less on speculating about the fellow wikipedians instead. greg park avenue 14:52, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Greg park avenue, there is one thing you should avoid if you want to analyse a situation in any given country: you should never compare one specific situation in that country to the same specific situation in your country… to analyse any single situation in a system you should consider it globally (you can, of course, prefer one SYSTEM to another).

I will give you an example: there are probably no more criminals or crazy people in the US than in France but there is a much higher death toll in the US. Each time a slaughter like “columbine” occurs, people in France wonder why US government does not forbid the sale of war arms. In France, you can only have hunting guns or collection arms and everything has to be registered. Nobody is entitled to have a weapon like an M-16.

French people often have a decided opinion on this, like you do with the “headscarf law”: “This absence of weapon control is the most stupid thing US ever did”; the problem is that French and US system are not at all the same. Even if you are convinced that weapon control is the good solution you should consider the 4th amendment of the US constitution which prevents the federal government to implement such a weapon control, you should try to understand why this amendment exists in the first place and to do that you have to know a little American history.

This is the same for the headscarf law… France is not the US; and integration of the immigrants is not realized the same way.

In the US, it is ok if people keep living in communities as long as the respect the American laws. The immigrants can keep talking their language, wear their traditional clothes, marry in their community, etc.

In France, immigrants are invited to “integrate” the French community; which means becoming like others in their public social life. This is why peoples who band together and strive to keep their traditions are not well accepted in France. The idea is “if they want to live in France, they should try to live like French”

Ideally, immigrants who are ready to integrate French society are the most welcome; and others should only come for a time and then go back to their homeland.

In reality, Blacks and Arabs immigrants already face difficulties to integrate French society because they cannot hide their differences. And the religious signs like the big beard, the Pakistani style clothes or the headscarf make some of them even more alien to the population.

You can discuss what comes first, rejection from the society first and fundamentalism as a result or fundamentalism before rejection from the society but the link exists between the two. And often the headscarf problem does not come alone: more and more girls do not want anymore to attend some courses at school because their family think they are offensive to their religion, women (or their husbands) make scandal in hospitals if there is no woman doctor to examine them and sometime refuse to be treated, etc. etc.

Some people even mutilate their daughters (excision) because it’s a tradition in their country or because they wrongly (this is by no way a prescription from the Quran or any other religion) think this is a religious obligation – and in this case I really think that French law is right to banish such practices.

The real question is where to put the frontier… if you ask a feminist, she will say that headscarves should be utterly banished from all public places including the street; if you ask a Muslim believer, she will say that she has to wear a veil to respect her religion.

French government decided to set a neutral territory in public school. Why there and not at the University? Because it is the time when kids’ minds are very malleable and placed in a “neutral” situation, they may learn that something else exists…

I personally disagree with this law not because of its objective but because it is playing against its own camp… If Muslims, Sikhs, Ultra-orthodox Jews create religious private schools to avoid sending their kids in public schools where they have to get off their headscarves, turbans or kippas, they will not even receive “neutral” teachings as they formerly did.

Jeemde 10:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

For starters, Jeemde, I didn't invent this series and even didn't contribute to it, except of nominating Saudi Arabian one for POV. I only gave my opinion on the discussion page of several of these (France/AfD - weak keep, China/AfD - speedy delete and Saudi Arabia -POV). On request for arbitration page I voted delete all or rename allegations to analogy. I also contributed a lot on the page Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Apartheid. My reason for weakkeeping France you know, this "headscarf law"affected obviously Arab girls only. No one elese seems to be affected, not counting handful of Jewish boys wearing "jarmulkas" (Paris is not Brooklyn) and handful of Sikhs, maybe some cults and the usual collection of creeps, nothing serious. That's where the apartheid analogy came from concerning France.

You have addressed many irrevelant to this topic issues like gun control, living in US communities, French immigration law, Quaran teachings, excision practices, etc. I comment on few ones only. I found a weak link in your chain of reasoning - I quote you The real question is where to put the frontier…. Now, you touched the typical European agenda - it looks from here like you guys were in the middle of the war on Islam, not islamism. Look at Serbia/South Bosnia conflict. Europe is silent about that one. There is not even an article on the Allegations of Serbian apartheid. Milosewic for chasing out hundreds of thousands of Moslems out of Bosnia got only slap on wrist before the European Tribunal in the Hague. And where was France then? Conveniently looked the other way. And now you're very upset someone compared your government to the South African style apartheid, and try to sell me this crap that the US is worse than France, because we own guns and French citizens don't? You know what? If US government fell, we still may defend ourselves with those guns if another clown tried to conquer US. They even cannot form a police state, because of those guns and our communities (remember Waco?). But when French government fell in WWII, you guys were defenseless as sitting ducks and this clown Hitler did with you whatever he pleased, until US soldiers buyed you out. You even can't get this article deleted, because English Wikipedia has been establish by an American and is based on the same American, not French, principles, where the community, doesn't matter how small, decides what to keep or what to delete, not some government establishment. Now you know? greg park avenue 17:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I know, perfectly. French bashing. And I don't see the aim of this. NicDumZ ~ 17:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Greg park avenue, if you were reading what I was writing, you would see that I was precisely NOT criticizing the lack of weapon control in the US (whatever I may think about it); I was telling that one cannot judge this situation in the US without looking at the whole US system. I know that the second amendment of the US constitution guarantee the right of the people to defend themselves (sorry for mistakenly mentionning the 4th one earlier). I know that this amendment is the outcome of that country's specific history.

It is the same thing when you criticize this law in France against blatant religious signs. It is based on that country's specific history.

I see that you do not like my image about the frontier but this is a very sensible one. Some religious or cultural practices can harm people and a State is by no mean obliged to respect these beliefs on its territory. Since the end of slavery, no one is forcing immigrants to come in France... if immigrants want to come they have to respect their hosting country's laws.

The question is where do you put the limit between the freedom of the people and the respect of one country's traditions and social organization?

In France, some people decided that kids from religious families should have a chance to learn what it is to live in a non religious ambiance for a few hours a day during a handful years. These people maybe wrong but you cannot decide this on the ground of what you see in the US.

You do not seem to know that the catholic church was controlling most of the social life in the country until quite a recent time... and it was a very hard struggle for "free thinkers" to bring back religion in the private circle.

Now in France, you are allowed to believe in Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Mahabharata or NOTHING. And this is how this country found its peace after wars of religion between the catholics and the protestants, segregation against the Jews (they were not allowed to practice all the professions prior the French revolution), political turmoil around the place of the Church in the country's intitutions, etc.

Since "1905 law" State and religion are separated in France. This is a founding text. As important for us as your 2nd amendment for you.

And from this law, France invented the concept of "laïcité", which means that public life should not be colonized by religion.

This is why headscarf is a problem in France. Especially since a greater number of muslim girls are deciding to wear it... Greater numbers bring greater concern...

This has nothing to do with a war against Islam. Crusades are over since the XIIIth century... It is just a concern about identity. France is open to immigration as long as this immigration does not change the country too much (and this is a big difference with the US, because the US is a country of immigrants that aggregated inputs from people from all over the world - even if WASP substrate managed to keep the upper hand).

To come back to our main concern, the title of this article, this law cannot be called Apartheid!

BECAUSE:

- a non practicing muslim girl will not be affected by that law

- a practicing muslim girl can go in a private school and get the same studies and diploma as in the public school.

- the muslims girls are free to wear their headscarves at university

- the aim of the law is not to separate people but to make them more alike (you have to know that school is mandatory in France until 16 years old, which means that the girls HAVE TO go to school without their headscarf if they do not find another solution - like private school).

You can be pissed off by this law; you may think it is infringing these girls dignity and freedom; but you cannot call it apartheid.

I am not trying here to defend France, I have said several time that many problems exist in France like racism, social segregation, etc. But it is not true to say that there is Apartheid in its South African meaning in 2007 France. This is the point.

Jeemde 19:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Th point is, not to say the same things twice, because it's not a forum I guess. greg park avenue 02:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The point is that this article is not about French Apartheid, it is Allegations of French apartheid, a sub-article to Allegations of apartheid. All this discussion of whether France practices Apartheid is irrelevant. (BTW, it doesn't.) Andyvphil 09:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

You can't discuss allegations of French apartheid without discussing if there is a valid analogy to SA apartheid. I would prefer to merge all these allegation articles into one more neutral title like ethnic segregation policy or ethnic segregation practices, with each country in question having its own section. Then, 90% of current French article would be the subject to delete, because those allegations are invalid. Only that part about headscarf law would stay, which is valid. greg park avenue 15:30, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

The headscarf law may give rise to valid complaint (or not; the French may have every right to demand compliance with norms as a price of immigration) but it is not a valid basis to allege apartheid. Under Apartheid a Zulu couldn't get treated as "white" by dressing like one. Allegations of apartheid, itself a sub-article to Allegations of Israeli apartheid and parent of this article, is all (by default) about the promiscuous invalid application of the epithet. The material you would delete is exactly the material that ought to be here. Andyvphil 03:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it really irrelevant to consider the reality of French Apartheid in a discussion page about the article Allegation of French Apartheid? This said, I agree that this place is not a forum and that one should avoid exchanging unsupported opinions with others.Jeemde 11:35, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to remove the "Wikiproject France" label

See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_France#Allegations_of_French_apartheid Teofilo talk 09:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to rename the article

By the same token as the renaming of Allegations of Northern Irish apartheid into Segregation in Northern Ireland (see the renaming diff, with "Neutral title" as comment), how about renaming the present article into Segregation in France and stop focusing on "apartheid". The purpose of Wikipedia is to gather data, not to "call names". The result of gathering sociological or demographical data on an alleged segregation in France might be that France is not more segregated than Britain or the Netherlands. Teofilo talk 09:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

See also the ensuing discussion on Talk:Segregation in Northern Ireland, including, for example ""Segregation..." is a more neutral and sensible title for this material" comment by Ashley. If this is true for Northern Ireland, that might well be true for France too. Teofilo talk 09:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Segregation is a much better term for the subject of the article which is much closer to communautarism than to apartheid, as there is no official policy to separate people and create ghettos. The current title can currently be understood as "there is an official policy but people keep it secret". This is not the case and a better title has to be found. I suggest anything close to Teofilo's suggestion or, better, a merge within another article.

Besides, the use of the word "allegation" is totally out of the question in an encyclopedia. We are not writing The Sun or News of the world. We must focus on facts and theories that are commonly recognized by relevant authorities--Bombastus 10:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

No, the article deals with allegations of apartheid, using these terms. If you think this word should be avoided, you should go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Words_to_avoid#Apartheid , and change all articles to that... IMO, Cheers, Amoruso 17:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we should not be "calling names". However, a precedent was set on Wikipedia to refer to "apartheid" in the title of an article about one country that had been accused of "apartheid." That was an unfortunate precedent, but until it is changed, consistency demands that "allegations of apartheid" be treated the same for different countries. Amoruso refers to the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Words_to_avoid#Apartheid; there is an ongoing proposal there (which I support) that articles other than those about South Africa should not have "apartheid" in their titles. In the meantime, I oppose this proposed renaming, as I believe it should not be discussed or decided in isolation. 6SJ7 18:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the term "apartheid" belongs anywhere but S. Africa, but as long as it is used in other titles across WP, it should be dealt with consistently. No preferential treatment, please. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 19:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Humus, the title is correct and neutral, the call for consistency is pertinent. --tickle me 23:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

The verifiable material from the recently deleted article Allegations of Chinese apartheid have been merged into Human rights in the People's Republic of China based on the AfD closing statement.

My proposal is to find a suitable article to merge the content of this article, based on the same arguments. It could be merged into Social situation in the French suburbs or similar. I am placing similar proposals on all other articles in the "Allegations of XXXX apartheid" series. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

• A merger with Social situation in the French suburbs is the most reasonable course of action. I fully support such a move, and I would add that the other "Allegations of ..." articles should be approached on a case-by-case basis. CJCurrie 21:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
• Delete and forget. These race problems in France are being looked at in great detail - but the chance of us understanding them (and then producing an article that effectively describes what's going on) is close to zero. The whole French attitude to these things is too different from ours for us to have a chance to understand. The Reliable Sources that we're used to depending on simply don't take enough interest for us to get a proper handle on things. Only if we restricted editing to fluent French-speakers would we have any chance of producing a half-way worthwhile article. PalestineRemembered 23:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment don't let Jossi do the merge. He did a very bad job on Human rights in the People's Republic of China, little more than a cut and paste. --Ideogram 12:26, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

  You could do this job (regarding China's article) by yourself unless you're not banned from editing. Merge is not the same thing as redirect, any user can do that first, and ask for permission later. greg park avenue 15:30, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

• Neutral as per reasons I gave in the section "Concerning POV" above. greg park avenue 15:30, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
• Support. The useful material will be better used in other articles where it will have appropriate context. Much (or most) of what's useful belongs at Social situation in the French suburbs, other material can go to other articles on civil rights in France.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:35, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
• Support. per Cúchullain. Furthermore, there already is a wonderfully informative article about French rule in Algeria. --GHcool 06:29, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
• Full support for merge and reduction. Articles with such a title and a biased content shouldn't even exist in an encyclopedia which focuses on facts and not on allegations.--Bombastus 09:02, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
• Seconding Bombastus in his Full support for the dissolution of this article. Usefull material (many of the sources) belong in Social_situation_in_the_French_suburbs#Confrontation_of_cultures & Social_situation_in_the_French_suburbs#Hidden_racism.

• Support: Merge most to Social situation in the French suburbs, sub-section on French Algeria to French rule in Algeria , the rest to Racism in France (see Racism by country), a sub-article also of Human rights in France, and get rid of all the rest ! Tazmaniacs 02:32, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose if this is limited to Saudi Arabia, Support if its applied globally, per WP:NPOV.

Some policy comments

I agree with the idea of renaming the article to Segregation in France or something along those lines (it affects more than just the suburbs, so I wouldn't limit it just to that). When I renamed the "Allegations of Northern Irish apartheid" as Segregation in Northern Ireland, I had three policy considerations in mind:

1) Whether or not "apartheid" is a word to avoid (currently it isn't), "allegations" certainly is - see WP:WTA#So-called, soi-disant, supposed, alleged, purported. Note in particular the following: "These all share the theme of explicitly making it clear that a given statement is not necessarily factual. This connotation introduces unnecessary bias into the writing; Wikipedia maintains a neutral point of view, and in general, there will be someone out there who will view a given statement as highly probable."

2) Policy requires that article titles comply with NPOV. See WP:NCON#Descriptive names (which, I should mention, I wrote a couple of years ago). This is more complicated than it may seem - the East Sea/Sea of Japan controversy is a case in point - but the core principle, as set out in WP:NCON, is that article titles should "not carry POV implications". The political term "apartheid" carries enormous POV implications; the sociological term "segregation" does not. When faced with a choice between a POV title and an NPOV one, we must choose the latter.

3) There is nothing in policy - or for that matter in common sense - to support the proposition that fixing one unsatisfactory article has to wait on fixing a separate article. If article A is bad, and article B is bad, the obvious answer is to fix both articles at the first opportunity. The rate of progress may vary between articles, but that's to be expected, because there are different editors and issues involved.

As for the way ahead for this article, I suggest taking the same approach that I adopted with Segregation in Northern Ireland. It needs to be built around a consistent framework, something which this article conspicously lacks. I suggest subdividing it into sections covering social, economic and political segregation. It should be possible to reuse much of the existing content to fill out these subsections, in just the same way that I did with Northern Ireland. -- ChrisO 23:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)