10 Years Ago I Watched Paris Burn During A Month of Riots Against Racist Police. Has Anything Changed Since?

A view from the Parisian ghetto where riots against police brutality caused France to call a state of emergency. Ten years later, what's changed?

Image via WikiMedia

In terms of my own self-awareness as a French Ivorian, October and November 2005 were a turning point or should I say, my N**** wake-up call. Before that, I was a fourteen year old who could have been an official spokesperson for ‘French meritocracy’ I believed in it so much. My good grades and behaviour allowed me to go to a Catholic school, instead of our local middle school marred by it’s awful reputation. My goal was to get out of the banlieue (suburb) I was from. To truly become French when you’re not white, you need to be whitewashed until no one can distinguish the color of your skin.

I grew up in Argenteuil, a banlieue not too far away from Clichy-sous-Bois, where the unrest started. My hometown is a melting pot of bleak cités, (similar to British council estates), gated communities and apartment complexes.

I knew the cité I was living in wasn't that bad. After all, we only had bins torched once a year, and the occasional ‘bangers’. The elevators were often covered in urine and spit, and sometimes in tear gas, when they simply didn’t work. Many of my neighbors came from shitty families where violent outbursts would start every other day: partners and spouses, sometimes children being kicked out and then taken back. That was just ordinary. Other places had it worse, with gang rapes on the rise, as well as gun violence.

But having it slightly better didn't make it right.

And then, the unrest happened. At first, the media coverage described it as the accidental death of two teenagers - Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré -  while being chased by police, but we knew there was more to the story. It triggered yet again, a fight between the ‘savages’ living in the banlieues and the brave policemen doing their jobs.



Why would they tear up their own communities? Maybe because they didn’t have one to begin with.


Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré were around my age, of Black and Arab descent just like me and many of my childhood friends. It's sad to say I wasn't surprised.

Police altercations were fairly common where I lived. We used to have a police station right around the corner. They’d do drug busts and arrest the kids standing in the cité all day long. Apart from that, they were useless.

But the fire was catching, and suddenly people were burning everything down. For some, it was because they’d had enough, while others didn't have any particularly noble reasons. Why would they tear up their own communities? Maybe because they didn’t have one to begin with. When we’re thrown away to a remote, impoverished area, not to be seen or heard, based on the colour of our skin and our social status, it’s difficult to build anything.

A state of emergency was announced and suddenly the news reports were focused on us in the banlieues. The main cause for concern was that the riots would scare tourists away. Paris, the destination of choice for millions of tourists, couldn't afford it.

The fires were in my neighbourhood too. Mr Sarkozy, the interior minister at the time visited us in our hometown, screaming at random families that he would get rid of the "thugocratie”. He even added that he would get rid of the thugs using the popular vacuum cleaner Kärcher if he had to. The brand’s sales increased massively.

Mr Sarkozy openly said what most people were thinking, and still think. That the “thugs” were just animals confined in unsanitary blocks of flats who didn't have the right to express their rage, and were obviously not worthy of respect. The thugs were never white.

We fiercely debated at school about the riots. The divide was clear: the middle class kids thought the rioters were scum who had too much time on their hands. The kids from the cités understood their rage.

My hopes and illusions were shattered. Meritocracy was a lie. Being a “good black girl” didn’t restore my humanity. For most French people, there were no differences between me and the rioters because I would always remain, first and foremost, a black girl from a cité. Never French, always the “Other”. This label would stick with me forever. It was up to me to accept it, after all, everyone else had already made the choice for me.

Today

The fire kept burning, across the country and inside me. I was hoping it would keep burning until things would finally change. But it didn’t.

Soon, the unrest disappeared from our collective memories, despite it returning from time to time, such as in the 2007 riots in Villiers le Bel.

The cité in which Mr. Sarkozy famously called the rioters “thugs” has been destroyed since. I guess the Kärcher really worked.

The little diversity we had has disappeared. People who could afford to fled in their droves to other wealthier neighborhoods.

It seems like people have either wiped the unrest from their memories to help them move on. But how is it possible to move on when things stay the same?

As someone born and raised in France I feel it is very French, for things to remain unchanged - to not confront the issues which make people uncomfortable.

10 years later, it feels like things haven’t changed, perhaps they’ve even gotten worse.

The police officers who pursued Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré in the chase that led to their deaths have been cleared entirely of any wrongdoing by a court.

Police brutality shows no sign of slowing, with non-white people still dying in custody. In 2009 Ali Ziri, a 69 year old Arab male died while he was being detailed for a traffic incident. His body was covered in bruises. Just last year Amadou Koumé died in police custody. While the official line was that his death was caused by drugs, French newspaper Liberation reported that the autopsy found the young man had died of asphyxiation aka suffocation.

Yet rarely a trial for the police officers are held, and certainly no one is convicted. It is a system that has legitimized unnecessary violence from the police and put them above the law.



the court in charge of judging police brutality is itself a part of the police


Ironically, like Mathieu Rigouste, a researcher and activist explains, in the French legal system, in order to be trialed in case of police brutality, the police watchdog needs to investigate the case first. To sum it up, the court in charge of judging police brutality is itself a part of the police.

Charities and organizations like AC Le Feu try to improve the banlieues and communities, but with so little financial means and support from our politicians, what is left to do?

Either leaving, like I did, or staying and being stuck forever in an endless loop.

I truly believe that we are witnessing a new generation of French people who hate their very own country; some of these men take the most extreme route and become radicals.

As long as France and our politicians believe that the issues in the banlieues are only troublesome to those “unlucky enough” to live there, and not a national issue, there will be no resolution. France needs to reflect on what it has become and acknowledge its non-white citizens (and not just when it's convenient like when we do well in sports).

Because, like one of my former classmates said in 2005: "France was built by foreigners. It is a part of our history and it still remains true". Denying that history means that we are bound to repeat the same mistakes, over and over again.

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