The disaster is here. Just a click away. Perceptible in these images of flames and black smoke that abound on social networks. Impossible to immediately measure the extent of the riots which crossed France this night of Friday, June 30, and it is indeed the trap of these few videos to give the impression of a country in the hands of thugs. But the facts are there, worrying: in Roubaix, Tourcoing, Saint-Denis, public buildings burned down. In Paris, in Noisy-le-Sec, in Nanterre, shops were looted and vandalized. Chaotic scenes in Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Lille. Here we are.
We think back to the sentence of Gérard Collomb, resigning Minister of the Interior. “We live side by side, I fear that tomorrow we can live face to face,” he said. He hadn’t defined this “we”, these “camps”, but everyone understood. It is strange, moreover, to note to what extent fiction announced reality, before and after the death of Zyed and Bouna, in 2005, a precedent that everyone has in mind. French cinema is full of films that take up the plot of the police blunder against a young man from the suburbs. Hatred (the young being only in a coma), Athena… Until Miserables, by Ladj Ly, who pushed the premonition to the point of imagining a pirate video undermining the probable arrangement of the police with the truth. Basically, this revolt of the suburbs is an anti-movement of yellow vests: where no one expected it, in 2018, this time, no one is surprised.
The facts that led to the death of young Nahel M. unfortunately take up archetypes that could not have better inflamed a society tormented by sad passions: the minor was driving without a licence, he committed an offense by refusing to comply; the police warned that they were going to shoot when their lives were not threatened – “I’m going to put a bullet in your head” -, then the first police sources spoke to AFP of a situation of defense against a man who “rushed towards the police”, a version quickly denied by the video of a passerby.
At this moment, part of the public, ill at ease, must note that this time, the first police declarations appear to contradict reality. Uncomfortable situation for all those who have respect for institutions as a principle and are wary of outrageous speeches, casting shame on the whole profession, for example those according to which “the police kill”. No, the police as a whole do not kill, they ensure the protection of citizens and public order, but this time a policeman killed. And it happens, in a proportion that will make no one agree, that police officers guilty of a serious act protect themselves rather than assume their responsibilities. Witness, among others, the case of Zineb Redouane, this 80-year-old lady fatally hit by a grenade from a CRS while she was closing her shutters, on December 1, 2018, in Marseille: the CRS group initially refused to tell the IGPN who had fired. Then the general direction of the national police refused to sanction the CRS finally identified.
Nerdy moderation
Systemic analysis, the rioters have done for a long time: they are convinced of living in a racist country, which does not want them, does not make room for them. Because we do not agree with this assertion, should we therefore refuse any questioning of practices? The defense of institutions on principle is wisdom: it testifies to confidence in the framework of society that we have democratically given ourselves; but institutions are not infallible, and when they malfunction, you have to be able to say so. In this regard, rigidly upholding the infallibility of the police institution – and of its internal investigative mechanisms, in particular -, as we once maintained, and for the same reasons, the authority of res judicata in the he Dreyfus affair is a mistake.
The death of Nahel M. is therefore seen as a spark for a youth at odds with the state. It’s like being back in 2005, same scenes, same feelings of idleness and nihilism among these young people. Except that the political reactions are more virulent. Calls for calm are no longer popular, moderation seems old-fashioned. It is better to choose a “side”. To be heard, you have to call “for justice” but “not for calm” (David Guiraud, Insoumis deputy), or for a state of emergency (Eric Ciotti, Eric Zemmour). On the far right, several identity activists (Damien Rieu, Julien Rochedy) draw a parallel with the Lola affair. Your dead against our dead. U.S. against them. The Whites against the “Blacks and the Arabs” (the formula, disastrous, is always from David Guiraud, who will have wanted, it seems, to put his feet in the dish).
Nothing has been achieved since 2005
How to get out of this predicted disaster? Realize that nothing has been achieved since 2005: city policy, delegated to local associations, is a failure, despite the many billions committed. No reflection has really led to the architecture of housing estates, these large ensembles which encourage withdrawal into an interior microcosm, and often facilitate the deal. In these micro-societies, social, ethnic and even religious diversity hardly exists anymore. A homogeneity that fosters resentment. Despite the anonymous CVs, no public policy to combat discrimination in hiring has really borne fruit. Justice no longer works like a machine to make amends, to become aware of its errors: the trials take place four, five, six years after the facts. Work of general interest is sometimes not even carried out.
In eighteen years, everything has happened as if we had dusted under the rug, hoping that the situation would work itself out. That France, strong in its flamboyant history, would once again become a united nation thanks to a few moments of footballing euphoria or a handful of bursts of cohesion – like the magnificent march of January 11, 2015. It did not happen like that. The “side by side” has not turned into playful living together. On the contrary, the communities have exacerbated their particularisms, by looking at each other more and more like a faience dog. In the cities, the French flag is rarely popular, and in rural France, the Le Pen vote, whose first ferment is the opposition to immigration, dominates.
Of course, it will first be necessary to stop the breakage, the shooting at the police, the vandalism. No emotion justifies burning down a library, looting a Nike store, defacing a monument to the victims of the Holocaust or writing on a wall: “We’re going to shoah you.” And justice will have to pass, there too. But that will not be enough. If we stop there, without drawing all the consequences, an even more uncontrollable conflagration will break out in two, four, eight years, who knows? And France will continue to “tear itself apart” little by little, as L’Express wrote in its April 28, 2022 issue, devoted to the re-election of Emmanuel Macron. “The president of the last chance”, we headlined then. This is more than ever the case.