- By Hugh Schofield
- BBC News, Paris
1 hour ago
Image source: Getty Images
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France’s interior minister has asked regions to ban the sale of fireworks, petrol cans and flammable products
Come to Nanterre for a comprehensive overview of the crisis in France. But if you’re a journalist, keep your head down.
As I approach a group of young men outside Café Le 35 – some bearded, one like a bodybuilder – an aggressive curse erupts and a pointed finger tells me to stay outside.
At the site where police shot dead a 17-year-old boy of Algerian descent last Tuesday, women wearing Islamic headscarves shout abuse at the police and the media from passing cars.
Strolling the streets incognito – without a camera or notebook – past burned-out cars and destroyed buildings, it is possible to glimpse the last catastrophic days.
Three middle-aged white ladies, Lucille, Marie and Jeanne, are conversing with a black friend on a bench in front of their apartment block. The area is unspoilt and surrounded by gardens – like many other apartment blocks in Nanterre.
They don’t want to be photographed for fear that their children will be identified and targeted, but like to chat.
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The people of Nanterre have endured several nights of violence, looting and rioting
“The last three nights have been horrendous. Between midnight and 4am there is chaos outside our windows. Nobody can sleep. I feel like I live on another planet,” says Lucille.
Don’t you think the rioters’ anger is understandable when Nahel, a young Nanterre resident, was shot dead during a police check?
“These riots have nothing to do with what happened. Of course the boy shouldn’t have been killed. But what did he do when he went for a spin at 8am without a license when the kids were at school?”
Marie looks at a destroyed bus stop covered in graffiti that reads “One cop, one bullet.”
“See what’s written there? That I’m totally against it. I don’t think the police are racist. There is good and bad in every group of people,” she says.
They have little time for the dead teenager’s mother, Mounia, who took part in a mass march to commemorate Nahel on Thursday.
“What was she doing on the march in that open van? It was unworthy. This wasn’t a funeral march. She’s playing politics.” The others nod in agreement.
“The boy wasn’t known for anything. Just for being an idiot.”
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Public buildings like this tax office were targeted in Nanterre and across France
Not far away, on the avenue Georges Clemenceau lined with plane trees, the prefect in charge of the Hauts-de-Seine department came to inspect the rubble that was in front of the local tax office. “Regrettable, deplorable,” he says.
Firework rockets fired at the building by rioters have left gaping holes in the upstairs windows. At street level, each pane was smashed with a heavy machine. Charred tax forms are scattered in front of the entrance.
Tax inspector Cyril, who lives in Nanterre but also refuses to be photographed, is among the onlookers.
“What I feel is just pathetic sadness,” he says. “This tax office serves the people of Nanterre. The money that comes from here is used to buy them services. What on earth is the point of attacking it? That is a totally disproportionate reaction.”
However, Cyril says he broadly sympathizes with the people who want to protest Tuesday’s killing.
“I’m not sure if the racist police are right. Let’s just say they have an attitude. The kids here have all been treated roughly, often for doing something stupid, sure.”
“But look, that was a child,” says Cyril. “The officer was an adult. He had a gun. It was his job to control the situation. And he wasn’t.”
Image Credit: YOAN VALAT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
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The local Nike store in Nanterre was vandalized as unrest escalated Thursday night
There are, of course, far stronger views among the locals who took part in the memorial march.
Like Bakari, who doesn’t justify the riots, but thinks they’re understandable: “Certain people react to violence with violence.”
“I wasn’t surprised [Nahel’s killing] because we’ve all had bad experiences with the police. There is good and bad everywhere, but the vast majority of police officers are racist.”
Or Yasmina: “I absolutely hate the French police. I wish her the worst. The whole system is corrupted by a systemic, racist ideology.”
“[Nahel] could have been my little brother. It drives me insane to think that a kid like any other can make stupid mistakes. He didn’t deserve death.
The city of Nanterre is a far cry from the hellhole of isolated social deprivation that some would like to portray. It’s spacious, clean and two metro stops from the Arc de Triomphe in central Paris.
The towers of the La Défense business district are just a stone’s throw away.
There is a theatre, a university, the national opera dance school and a large park named after former President Charles de Gaulle’s culture minister, André Malraux. Unfortunately, the children’s carousel that has been there for 50 years burned down yesterday.
The prevailing impression of the city is that of two universes colliding.
All the standard equipment of the generous French state can be clearly seen on one level.
fly tricolor; the prefect comes to inspect his domain; Subways whiz underground and multinational corporations make their billions in the soaring towers of La Défense.
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Paris Match photographer Eric Hadj says social media helped rioters mobilize
But in the same geographic space there is another way of being: one that seems totally alienated from the system; who quickly recognizes and reflects hostility; which reads “Ici on est chez nous” – this patch is ours – pointing the finger at unwanted outsiders like the press.
At a gas station near the IRS, veteran Paris Match photographer Eric Hadj inspects his broken-down car and prepares insurance claim forms.
“We were here on Thursday during the march. Some big people came and told us to get off. They made it clear that if we didn’t do it, we would risk something very bad. When we came back today, of course, the car was completely broken.” Destroyed.”
Hadj has seen many unrests in his time but says he has never seen anything like it.
“It’s worse, much worse than 2005,” he says.
Everyone here is looking back at the recent ongoing riots that shook the French banlieues or suburbs for three weeks and wondering how long the latest riots will last.
“Today there is social media that gives the rioters a huge advantage. But above all it is more violent. They have missiles. The reluctance that was there has been lifted,” says the photographer.
Gérard Collomb, the former socialist mayor of Lyon and interior minister under President Macron, is known for his incisive sayings.
When he left office in 2018, he bemoaned the worrying tendency of French society to split into communities – which he says is the exact antithesis to a single, unified republic.
“Today we live side by side,” he said. “Tomorrow I fear we will face each other.”
In Nanterre one face of France stands against the other.