French Muslim businessman bucks the trend

Daniel Strieff Reporter • Profile • E-mail

MANTES-LA-JOLIE, France — Morocco-born Frenchman Aziz Senni is not waiting for help from the state.

“It is up to us,” he says, gazing levelly at his interviewer. “We must be the ones to change France — the society, the politics, everything.”

Raised in the grim Val Fourre neighborhood of the Paris suburb Mantes-la-Jolie, Senni has thrived where so many other young Muslims in France have struggled by establishing a lucrative business — and one based on a traditional North African model, no less.

Motivated by what he calls “social revenge,” Senni and his brother established Alliance Transport Accompagnement (company slogan: “cheaper than a taxi, faster than a bus”) in 2000.

“For me, making it has been through hard work. … But this kind of feeling of social revenge was also important. I felt a very strong need to achieve some kind of social mobility,” Senni, 30, said during an interview in his main office, located in this town 30 miles outside of Paris.

A practicing Muslim, Senni has fully embraced the values of his adopted country.

“I feel that I am French first, more than an Arab,” he said.

“After all, there are a lot of ways to be French. … You are not French by religion. But there is still this old notion of being French, which is slowing [integration] down,” Senni said.

North African model
Based on taxi services found in North Africa, Senni's ATA ferries passengers to and from destinations in large shared vans, thereby increasing the number of stops each vehicle makes, but decreasing the overall cost for each customer.

His brother soon dropped out of the endeavor, but Senni pushed ahead.

It has proved a success: he says he earns more than 1.5 million euros a year (about $1.94 million), has opened franchises in more than half a dozen locations around France, and is eyeing nearly a dozen other cities in which to set up shop. He now operates 50 vehicles and employs nearly 100 people, many of whom are from Val Fourre.

President Jacques Chirac visited the opening of his office in 2005 as part of an attempt to highlight success stories among immigrants.

Exception, not the rule
Senni’s success is the exception rather than the rule in the suburbs (banlieues) of France’s big cities.

France has the second-largest economy among countries using the euro, but the unemployment rate has hovered around 10 percent for the past two decades. The joblessness rate for people under 25 is at around 22 percent, according to figures from the French Labor Ministry released earlier this year.

A separate study issued by the French government in October said that unemployment in many of the suburbs of major cities was around 21 percent and rising. Other reports suggest a far higher figure.

November’s riots in heavily Muslim areas paralyzed France and shocked the world.

After the unrest, the government vowed to address what was seen as the critical factor: the economic plight of immigrants and their children.

“The republic is at a moment of truth,” Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said at the time. “What is being questioned is the effectiveness of our integration model.”

Blow for the government
The government was dealt a blow in April when it withdrew a new law that was intended to help the country’s youth by making it easier for employers to both hire and fire young workers.

The legislation provoked massive protests from an informal alliance of middle-class students and union workers concerned about losing what safeguards they had, and proved that any changes to employment would be an incremental, and contentious, process.

Aurore Wanlin, a French analyst at the London-based Center for European Reform, said unemployment is so pervasive for all young French adults partly because they spend a long time in education, thus entering the job market later. But youths in the suburbs face a further set of challenges.

“These young people in the banlieues are stuck in a vicious cycle because they want to integrate, to get jobs, but they are unable to do so — with no car, no driving license and less opportunities to education,” she said, adding that rigidity in the employment market was hampering job growth for everyone in France, not just for young minorities.

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