Azouz Begag
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Azouz Begag (b. 5 February 1957 Lyon, Rhône, France ) is a writer and researcher in economy at the CNRS. He is the delegate minister for equal opportunities of France in the Villepin government.
Begag's best known literary work is the autobiographical novel Le Gone du Chaâba (Éditions du Seuil, 1986). The title itself is a clever play on dialect words. 'Gone' is a term for 'kid' or 'lad' in a Lyonais vernacular, while 'Chaâba' is an Algerian word for 'tribe'. Both Azouz Begag and the protagonist of the novel grew up in a sort of shanty town outside Lyon, almost entirely inhabited by Algerian immigrant workers, in which the language and culture were predominantly Algerian. The problems of the ghetto-like environments established by and for guest workers in France after WWII, of the individual children of these ghettoes who are French Citizens by dint of being born in France and for whom 'breaking out' is both very difficult and statistically improbable, and Azouz Begag's own success in entering the mainstream of French culture, are at the heart of the novel. Begag's academic career, culminating in his place as a research economist at the CNRS, as well as his political career to date, have also centred around the problems of inequal opportunity for those brought up in industrial suburbs and ghettoes.
He was in October 2005 at the centre of a diplomatic incident between France and the United States. Begag, despite being a French minister and holding a A1 diplomatic visa, was intercepted at US immigration in Atlanta airport, saw his diplomatic immunity challenged and was heavily questioned in the green room. This was considered as racial profiling on the part of the US immigration officers. [link]
During the 2005 civil unrest in France, Begag came to confront Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy on the subject of the policies in the suburbs of Paris. [link]
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Books By Azouz Begag:
- Le Gone Du Châaba
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