Quotes of the Day

Rachid Nekkaz was back on his home turf in the Parisian banlieue of Choisy-le-Roi last month with a timely message for the neighborhood's largely black and Arab population. "Get yourselves on the electoral lists!" his spokesman declared through a bullhorn over the din of market criers in the crowded morning bazaar. "Nekkaz, son of Choisy-le-Roi, is running for President!" The gangly son of illiterate Algerian immigrants, now a successful Internet entrepreneur, doesn't entertain hopes of winning against the likes of Ségolène Royal, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Marie Le Pen. He'll be lucky to get even 3% of the vote.

But as the sole presidential candidate to come from these forgotten quarters of France, Nekkaz, 34, is trying to address one of the most glaring failings of the French political system: the systematic underrepresentation of visible minorities. Nekkaz and his organization, Club des Elus Allez France, have registered 63,000 new voters in the last six months, and he says he's just getting started. By his reckoning, 15-25% of potential voters in the poor suburbs around Paris aren't registered. His pitch for involvement, if not for the presidency, captures the imagination of Rose N'Daw, 63, who works as a cook in a relative's Senegalese restaurant nearby. "We need people around here to start expressing themselves," she says. "We need to do something. We need a little hope. And maybe we need to bang on the table."

A year ago, in neglected neighborhoods on the edge of cities and towns throughout France, young rioters banged on more than tables. Burning cars, vandalizing schools and looting stores, they lent a hard edge of crisis to the long-obvious fact that many among the poor ethnic minorities in the banlieues feel excluded from France's economic and political life. Better schools, better housing and more jobs are all vital elements of bridging the yawning gap, as politicians of all parties have piously noted. But precious few among those pols are minorities themselves. There is not a single member of France's National Assembly of Arab or black origin; nor is a single mayor in France, even in the suburban communities ringing Paris and other French cities where descendants of post-war immigrants are concentrated.

It's a problem that political parties are grappling with only gingerly in a country that won't even gather statistics on ethnic origin. No one disputes the need for more diversity among political representatives. But politicians across the spectrum frequently declare that France's republican ideals are at odds with what they derisively call "communitarism," or basing politics in religion, ethnicity or anything else less universal than the classic French virtues of equality, liberty and fraternity. The notion that minorities may be best suited to represent minorities is simple ethnic politics anywhere else, but in France that's seen as the first step toward reducing the state to an arbiter among warring factions rather than something that treats all French people equally. It's a handsome concept, but in practice, it often makes the disenfranchized feel even more excluded.

In the run up to the anniversary of last year's riots, there has been a rash of criminal ambushes on police and burning of public buses. Unlike last year's paroxysms of destruction, those acts have engendered scant sympathy among most residents of the projects. Violence may not be the answer, but people who live in the banlieues don't see much reason to put their faith in politics either. "We're in the streets day and night, trying to get a dialogue going," says Eugène-Henri Moré, the communist deputy mayor for youth in La Courneuve, where 80% of families live on incomes below the poverty level. "But people here have no relationship with institutions. A lot of people see politics as a big show, and they're tired of talking."

Political disenchantment is part of daily life in La Corneuve. One day last month, Moré took an hour to explain to Mohamed, 20, and Bakary, 17, why they were still waiting for a license to set up a stall in the La Courneuve marketplace to sell clothes and shoes. The city's mayor had launched a program to give 10 young people a crack at commerce at the beginning of the summer, but the pair says they've gotten nothing but a runaround since then, and some of the original 10 have already fallen away. "My job is to decode the way something like this works," says Moré, who promises to fight his way through the bureaucracy to get them their corner of the marketplace by December. "We can't wait that long," says Mohamed. "We need to open up tomorrow!" Moré sighs. "That seems like a long time to you, but for me it's going to be a real race."

Getting more minorities into political office demands no less patience. Louis-Mohamed Seye is the only black among the 45 members of the municipal council of Fontenay-sous-Bois, a community east of Paris where 47% of housing is in projects and the Franco-African population is substantial. But late last month, he says, the head of the local section of the Socialist Party promised a more diverse candidate list for the 2008 municipal elections. "One day," says Seye, "I'm going to be mayor of this town." For next June's legislative elections, the Socialist Party has selected more than 40 people of Arab or African origin as candidates for the 577 National Assembly seats at issue. But the vast majority of them have been given slots in conservative constituencies where they are bound to lose.

"We figure about 10 of them will win," says Malek Boutih, the party's national secretary for social questions. "We're trying to find a way to let a new, diverse generation emerge without falling into the trap of thinking only minorities can represent minorities." But isn't expecting residents of the banlieues to put their identity as Socialists or French citizens before their ethnicity a bit naive? Boutih doesn't think so. "It's a bet that will pay off over time," he says.

The Socialists can at least claim more support among minorities than the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (ump). Jeannette Bougrab, 33, is the ump's national secretary, charged with attracting new party members. She has also been accorded a candidacy in Paris' mixed 18th arrondissement — a Socialist sinecure that she calls "unwinnable."

As the descendant of Algerians who fought alongside the French in the Algerian war of independence, she is torn between her political ideologies and her identity as a minority. "I generally find it insulting to be considered a visible minority," she says. "I'm a lot of other things, including a law professor. It's time people see me as a Frenchwoman with black hair." But she thinks the ump has abandoned the banlieues and can only start winning there if she assumes the burden of her origins. "If people like me don't get interested in the situation of minorities, it's hard to expect others in the party to," she says.

Mohamed and Bakary, meanwhile, remain less than enamored of the processes of the French state. The young pair left the city hall in La Corneuve in the same dire financial straits with which they entered it. For them, the promised market stall is a first step to making their way in a complex society. How much more sobering is the larger challenge of helping more than 5 million Arab and black French citizens to see themselves reflected in France's city halls, Parliament — and perhaps even presidential palace?

• JAMES GRAFF / Paris
• A year after the riots, France's minority communities are still voiceless and restless