Paris LetterViolence is a daily nightmare for many French immigrant women, writes Lara Marlowe
Samira Bellil will walk at the head of the demonstration when the "Women's March Against Violence in the Ghettos" reaches Paris on International Women's Day on Saturday.
Bellil's book, In the hell of the Tournantes, has shocked France with its account of the gang-rapes she survived as a teenager in a suburb north of Paris. (Tournante, meaning "revolving", is slang for increasingly common group assaults against women.)
Bellil dedicated her book, which has sold 50,000 copies since it was published by Denoël last October, "to my sisters in hell". The women's march has visited 23 French cities since early February and Bellil says she participates "because it's important that girls realise that what happens to them is not 'normal'."
They must learn, "I have the right to say 'no', the right to speak out, to tell people I've suffered'."
Bellil's family, of Algerian origin, came to France three generations ago. "We're not just off the boat," she laughs in a rough banlieue accent. When she was 11, Bellil began spending Friday nights - her father's drinking night - sleeping in cellars or stairwells or walking all night when it was cold. At 13, she had her first relationship, with a 19-year-old caid, as petty gang leaders are known. She thought she loved him, despite the fetid cellar where they had sex on a broken sofa. "I never knew a cosy room with soft music and candles," she wrote. "For me it was beatings, fear, lies and betrayal."
The moment Bellil was no longer a virgin, she became "fair game" for other boys in the housing project. Her boyfriend vanished one day, turning her over to three of his friends who imprisoned her in an apartment.
She experienced the same terror three times in four years. "Girls were merchandise, and they still are," she said.
When Bellil told her parents, "They threw me out on the street; I was 14." Pleas from other girls, victims of the same gang, finally persuaded Bellil to go to the police. The neighbourhood boys punched her in the face and spat at her. Now 30, she works as a teacher's aide two neighbourhoods away.
"You don't escape - it's for life," she says. "Nobody protects you. I often see 'K', my aggressor. We look at each other, and I'm still afraid. I have to overcome my fear, to help the other girls."
A loving family, due process of law and relocation do not guarantee safety. Teachers now escort Sarah (14) to and from school every day near Lille.
She and her family moved after Sarah accused nine boys, aged between 14 and 17, of gang-raping her in 2001. Only five of the boys were jailed, and Sarah's tormentors caught up with her this winter, daubing graffiti on her building and threatening her family. Her father appeared on television a few days ago, saying the authorities showed more concern for the rapists than for his daughter.
Girls in the immigrant suburbs are caught between French society, which expects them to "liberate" themselves, and their families, who tell them they must respect history and customs. Most now dress in baggy track-suits and running shoes; merely wearing a skirt is "asking for it". Those who wear Islamic headscarves are left alone.
Kahina Benziane (20), joined the nascent women's revolt after her sister Sohane (18), was murdered last autumn - doused with petrol and set alight in the rubbish collection room of a housing estate at Vitry-sur-Seine, outside Paris. Sohane's killer, a 19-year-old hashish dealer, had banned her from entering "his" territory. "They burn girls like they burn cars," Kahina said.
Nacira Guénif Souilamas, a French sociologist and the author of a book on beurettes (daughters of North African immigrants) says: "Just being a woman in the ghettos is dangerous behaviour. If you accentuate your femininity in any way, you increase the risk."
Yet Souilamas expresses some understanding for the young men who brutalise women in the banlieues. "They are always portrayed as savage and bestial, so they play the role of violent young heterosexuals. Every door has been closed to them - they are discriminated against in schools and jobs. The only thing left is their body. It's a refuge for their identity and the source of their power.
"So they take it out on those who are weakest around them. When nothing else is left for them, they still have the ability to dominate women."