We're French but not 'real' french

We're French,' but not 'real' French
By Katrin Bennhold International Herald Tribune

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2005
LA COURNEUVE, France Walid was born in France and went to a French high school. He will show you his French driving license and even his French identity card. But ask him what his identity is and he will say "93."
 
"Nine Three" - the two first two digits of the postal code spanning the roughest suburbs on Paris's northeastern fringe - stands for unemployment and endless rows of housing projects. It stands for chronically high crime rates, teenage gang wars and a large immigrant community.
 
Since Oct. 27, when the accidental death of two teenagers set off nightly riots across the region, "93" also stands for angry youths burning hundreds of cars, setting fire to shops and attacking the police with anything from rocks to real bullets.
 
Theirs is a defensive identity, an identity by default that has sprouted in a vacuum of any real sense of belonging.
 
These youths may not be representative of the suburbs their nightly rage has catapulted into the headlines: Many fellow residents condemn the violence and yearn for a return to normality.
 
But their anger at a system that has excluded them from jobs, opportunity and a sense of identity is widely shared.
 
"The question of being French is irrelevant - what's in a piece of paper?" said Walid, 19, who is of Algerian descent, dismissively putting his identification card back into his jeans pocket.
 
"I'm from the ghetto, I'm from 93, end of story."
 
In the northern housing projects of La Courneuve, a menacing place littered with burned-out cars and small groups of youths lingering in entrances, the frustration is palpable.
 
Continued - http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/04/business/france.php