F**k the French!

French shrug off criticism of a notorious street name
By Mary Papenfuss
For The Inquirer

ST.-DENIS, France - For a street that has sent shock waves across the Atlantic, the new Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal doesn't look like much. It's a single-block stretch running through a half-constructed apartment complex in a hardscrabble neighborhood that could be a dusty village in the Mideast rather than a 15-minute suburban train ride from chi-chi Paris.

The neighborhood includes French Africans, Arabs and Spanish families, some of whose ancestors fled the dictatorial regime of Francisco Franco. On a recent Sunday, people danced to Spanish guitars at the Social Center for Retired Hispanics while men in shirtsleeves and turbaned women in colorful African dresses listened to Arab music at the nearby Rights of Children playground, which is just across the street from the Nelson Mandela sports complex.

The street was named in a three-day ceremony in April, with Mayor Didier Paillard declaring Abu-Jamal, who was sentenced to death in 1982 for killing Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, a "symbol for justice [and] for the abolition of the death penalty." The Fraternal Order of Police condemned the action, and Faulkner's widow, Maureen, urged a tourist boycott of Paris in response. Last month, Reps. Mike Fitzpatrick, a Republican, and Allyson Schwartz, a Democrat, sponsored a federal resolution demanding that the name be changed.

But despite the protests in Philadelphia, a spokesman said Paillard refused to rescind the naming.

"It was a decision of the local government supported by the people of St.-Denis," Adrian Coss, the Paillard spokesman, told The Inquirer on Wednesday. "Absolutely not. There's no reason to. The street will stay as it is."

Abu-Jamal, 53, a former journalist and political activist, has maintained his innocence. Last year, a federal appeals court agreed to consider Abu-Jamal's appeal of his conviction and claims of racial bias in his jury selection.