Come to Nanterre to get a comprehensive view of the crisis brewing in France. But if you are a journalist, advise to keep your head down.
Approaching a group of young men outside Le 35 café – some bearded, built like a bodybuilder – prompts an aggressive sort of anger and a pointed finger instructing me to stay out.
At the scene where police shot dead a 17-year-old Algerian-born boy last Tuesday, women wearing Islamic hijabs taunt police and media as cars pass by.
Wandering the streets incognito – without a camera or notebook – it’s possible to catch glimpses of the last disastrous few days past burnt-out cars and broken buildings.
Three middle-aged white women, Lucille, Mary and Jane, chat with a black friend on a bench outside their block of flats. The area is pristine, surrounded by gardens – like many other apartment blocks in Nanterre.
They don’t want to be photographed because they fear their children will be identified and targeted as a result, but they are happy to chat.
Come to Nanterre to get a comprehensive view of the crisis brewing in France. But if you are a journalist, advise to keep your head down.
Approaching a group of young men outside Le 35 cafe – some bearded, built like a bodybuilder – an aggressive sort of anger and a pointed finger instruct me to stay out.
At the scene where police shot and killed a 17-year-old Algerian-born boy last Tuesday, women wearing Islamic hijabs taunt police and the media as cars pass by.
Wandering the streets incognito – without camera or notebook – it’s possible to catch glimpses of the ravaged days of burnt-out cars and broken buildings.
Three middle-aged white women, Lucille, Mary and Jane, are chatting with a black friend on a bench outside their block of flats. The area is pristine, surrounded by gardens – like many other apartment blocks in Nanterre.
They don’t want to be photographed because they fear their children will be identified and targeted as a result, but are happy to chat.
Farther up the avenue Georges-Clémenceau, lined with plane trees, the prefect, head of the Hauts-de-Seine department, has come to survey the wreckage which was in front of the local tax office. “Sad, sad,” he says.
Firework rockets fired by rioters at the building have blown holes in the upper floor windows. At street level, each pane is broken with heavy equipment. Burnt tax forms are strewn outside the entrance.
Among the spectators is tax inspector Cyril, who lives in Nanterre but refuses to be photographed.
“All I feel is a miserable sadness,” he says. “This tax office serves the people of Nanterre. The money that comes from here is used to buy their services. What’s the point of attacking it? It’s a completely disproportionate response.”
Searle, however, says he is largely sympathetic to those who want to protest Tuesday’s killing.
“I’m not sure if the racist police are right or not. Let’s just say they have an attitude. Kids around here get all kinds of treatment, often because they do something stupid. had been.
“But look, it 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.”
Locals taking part in the commemorative march certainly have far stronger views.
Like Bakari, who does not justify the riots but believes they are understandable: “Some people react to violence with violence.”
“I wasn’t surprised by [Nahil’s murder] because we’ve all had bad experiences with the police. There are good and bad everywhere, but the vast majority of police are racist.”
Yasmina: “I absolutely hate the French police. I wish them the worst. The whole system is corrupted by a systemic, racist ideology.
“[Nahl] could have been my little brother. It blows my mind to think that a kid like him could make a stupid mistake, like anyone could. He didn’t deserve to die.”
The town of Nanterre is far from the isolated hell of social deprivation that some would like to portray. It’s spacious, clean and two stops on the commuter train from the Arc de Triomphe in the center of Paris.
The towers of the La Defense business district are far away.
There is a theater, a university, the National Opera and Dance School, and a large park named after André Malraux, the culture minister of former president Charles de Gaulle. Unfortunately, the children’s roundabout that was standing there for the last 50 years was burnt to ashes yesterday.
The high-riding impression away from the city is of two universes colliding.
On one level, all the standard items of the generous French state are plain to see.
The tricolor flies. The prefect comes to survey his domain. Metro trains run underground and La Defense multinationals make billions in towers.
