It is 11 p.m., in front of the town hall of Bobigny, in Seine-Saint-Denis. The Zam Zam (“pure water of Makkah”) restaurant is illuminated. Young people hang out next to six police officers. The atmosphere is calm on this evening of Saturday 1ᵉʳ July. But a burned bus in a small square shows the violence of the previous nights. This bus belongs to the association Agir pour le cœur des femmes. Equipped with an electrocardiogram and other medical devices, he had been driving from one city to another for two years. According to RFI, 80 caregivers took turns on board to carry out free cardiological and gynecological examinations, as well as analyzes to diagnose cases of diabetes, hypertension or cholesterol. Thanks to this bus, 6,500 women were screened. Today, it is reminiscent of the wreckage of cars in Homs, this city in Syria completely destroyed by war.
Wassim, little beard, 18 years old, of Algerian origin, lives in the neighborhood. He tells me that he is against violence, but clarifies: “I’m not sure that another method is effective in getting people to listen to us. My friend was beaten several times in front of the Paul-Eluard housing estate, without any reason, I myself was arrested without having done anything.” One of his friends, Sami, t-shirt and banana, joins us. He agrees with Wassim: “We are for Nahel, justice must do its job, but we are ignored, tomorrow it could be me, him or you.” Very quickly, several of their friends gathered around us. They are all the same age. Cautious, they do not answer the question of whether they participated in the heist. But they point to me, laughing, Adam, a skinny boy, looking younger: “He threw a Molotov at a police car! Wallah, it’s him!” Adam contradicts them.
I start talking to them in Arabic, a language they know very little about. But they are relieved to know that I practice it, they are more motivated to express themselves. Wassim confides to me that he is for violence against the police, but against violence targeting people’s material goods. At the same time, he thinks that we must prepare peaceful, well-structured demonstrations, with real leaders: “Look at the yellow vests: they were badly organized, that’s why they didn’t succeed.” Both, Sami and Wassim, studied at the Louise-Michel high school in the city. Currently, they work in the fire safety sector.
“What they are doing has nothing to do with Nahel”
The young people move away. Armed police, with several cars, are still on site. They are a few meters from us, they refuse to speak. Their leader approaches, he confirms that they are there to ensure security, in Bobigny and the surrounding area. “Be careful,” he said as he walked back to his car. Given the number of police on the bridge in front of the town hall, it is clear that the situation is not so calm. Residents come to pick up their pizzas and sandwiches at the restaurant and leave quickly, others dine there. No one pays attention to the charred bus. It is now part of the landscape.
Ali, 22, works in the restaurant. He has been living in France for eight months and comes from Morocco. Sitting on a motorcycle while smoking a cigarette, he speaks to me in Arabic: “Yesterday, one of my colleagues was attacked by two guys on his way home from work. They threw a stone at him. It was for no reason, the thugs hit everyone. Since it’s school holidays, they have nothing else to do.”
Not far from here is the MC93, the house of culture of Seine-Saint-Denis, which houses a national stage. In Bobigny, several associations take care of young people: Backup 93, Boost, the Francas de Seine-Saint-Denis… They organize cultural and leisure activities, help with homework. Bobigny, nearly 55,000 inhabitants in 2020, had a budget of 192.61 million euros in 2023, of which more than 9 million were allocated to primary schools alone.
As we talk, a masked guy on a bike approaches. He wears a black vest, his mask falls off, he looks like a teenager. “He’s one of them,” Ali tells me. The other stops next to the police, the latter do not react. “He’s watching the neighborhood, it’s going to start again around midnight. We fled the violence in the bled and now we’re seeing it here”, adds my interlocutor, as soon as he knows that I am of Syrian origin. I ask him what they are doing to avoid the looting: “Nothing, we are between the police and these barbarians, they are badly educated guys, what they are doing has nothing to do with Nahel. They just want to break to break, they have a hatred that I do not understand”, replies the young man.
“The last nights felt like an earthquake”
A sound of fireworks comes from the side of the Karl-Marx city. The policemen get into their cars and leave quickly. Ali starts his motorcycle. I head towards rue du Chemin-Vert, on the other side of the town hall. Three dealers, I spot them from afar, dressed in black, watch the area. I call Caroline, a friend who lives there. “The last nights felt like an earthquake, they kept breaking, burning, throwing Molotovs until 4am,” she tells me. For her, the dealers are at the origin of this violence: “The other time, the police came to do an identity check, shortly after, a dealer shot in the middle of the street with a Kalashnikov to tell the cops that there were weapons here. The Chemin-Vert traffickers specialize in hashish, the others, near the Pablo-Picasso metro, sell cocaine. They have their territories, they pass them on to each other, The current events are an opportunity for them to show the police what violence they can incite.”
The dealers are still there, they don’t move. I pass a charred car. On the sidewalks, bins grouped together for recycling are burning. Passers-by rush to go home. Between the Cité Paul-Eluard and the Boulevard Lénine, mortar fireworks echo and the trees intertwine their branches, in this long night.
* Writer and poet born in Damascus, Omar Youssef Souleiman took part in the demonstrations against the regime of Bashar el-Assad, but, tracked down by the secret services, he had to flee Syria in 2012. A refugee in France, he published with Flammarion The Little Terrorist, The Last Syrian And A Chamber in Exile.