Family factor

THE violence in France’s poor out-of-town estates highlights the breakdown of parental authority in many immigrant families, with mothers and fathers powerless to influence their rebellious children.

“For my children I am the embodiment of failure,” said Meziane (50), a former journalist who came to France from Algeria at the end of the 1980s. A father of three, he has worked as a house painter and a waiter but is currently unemployed.”How do you expect my children to listen to me or want to be like me, when I can never say ‘yes’ to the things that they want – and this in a society where they are under constant pressure to consume,” he said at his home in La Courneuve, Paris.”The parents are quite simply unable to cope,” said Rachid, the head of a private security company at Saint-Denis.- Nampa-AFPA father of three, he has worked as a house painter and a waiter but is currently unemployed.”How do you expect my children to listen to me or want to be like me, when I can never say ‘yes’ to the things that they want – and this in a society where they are under constant pressure to consume,” he said at his home in La Courneuve, Paris.”The parents are quite simply unable to cope,” said Rachid, the head of a private security company at Saint-Denis.- Nampa-AFP