'I don't understand the actions but I get the anger': the view from a French high-rise housing estate

ItIt is Saturday July 1st in Le Val Fourré and a time for festivities to celebrate the end of the school year. Children of all ages, some with their parents, meander through the labyrinth of this neighbourhood in Mantes-la-Jolie, north-west of Paris, the site of one of the biggest high-rise housing estates in France with 21,000 residents. In the huge esplanade in the centre of the estate a local association has installed some inflatable toys, and sports clubs are holding their end-of-year festivals. On the sports ground organisers are staging the Mantes Coupe d’Afrique des Nations (CAN), a football tournament in which young boys and girls are divided into teams playing in colours that more or less reflect their families' diverse origins.

There are, though, a few signs of the recent disturbances: the front of the estate's town hall annex was set alight two nights before; the local bank is now blackened and unusable; and the tax office was also damaged by fire. This neighbourhood went up in flames after the shooting of 17-year-old Nahel last week at a police roadblock at Nanterre, a Paris suburb which lies just under 25 miles to the east. The unrest was no great surprise given the extent to which police violence has been a feature of life on this vast housing estate over the generations.

The interior minister Gérald Darmanin visited Mantes-la-Jolie at around 3am on Saturday. But he stayed in the prosperous town centre, which is situated more than half a mile away from the Le Val Fourré estate.

Brother died in police custody

At the Souquet gymnasium the karate club's summer festivities are drawing to a close. Sonia Mebarka, 54, the club's executive secretary, greets everyone: volunteers, coaches, young members, their parents and their brothers and sisters. Her son Naoufel and his best friend Ademe are with her. The young teenagers want to go to the football tournament being held a little further away in the neighbourhood. Sonia hesitates. “I'm afraid, perhaps the police will go after them this evening,” she explains.

Like many in this town, Sonia has personal experience of police violence. It her case it occurred more than 30 years ago. On May 27th 1991 her brother Aïssa Ihich died from a heart attack while in police custody. He was 19-years-old. Two days earlier, says Sonia, Aïssa, had found himself “in the wrong place at the wrong time” as he headed for a friend's house. Police officers who had been deployed in Le Val Fourrée because of rioting there had stopped him and beaten him up. An asthma sufferer, he had not survived custody without his medicines.

According to Sonia “the police officers said they'd stopped my brother for throwing stones but I know that's false. They had to stick something on him, that's all.”

The two police officers involved and the doctor who approved detention all faced criminal proceedings. Eleven years later the officers were convicted of “aggravated violence” and given eight-month suspended prison sentences. “For the last 30 years I've said that there are two different standards of justice in France,” sighs Sonia.

The fact that the police officer who shot Nahel is now in custody changes nothing as far as she is concerned. “It's been done to calm the people down, that's all. I don't think he'll be convicted. They'll help him move, to change jobs and he'll be forgotten,” she says.

“When my brother died I wanted it to be the last such case. But it began again, and doesn't end,” adds Sonia unhappily. “We're used to it,” says her son Naoufel, who is just 14. As the mother of three children and an employee at the employment centre Sonia understands the exasperation of the young – sometimes very young – people taking part in the unrest. But she thinks they are not aiming at “the right targets”, referring to the burning of local businesses and the sports hall.

This view is shared by Nathalie Coste who, like her friend Sonia, is a former leftwing councillor in the town. They have come to meet for a coffee on the concrete central esplanade in Le Val Fourré. “What they're dong is only harming themselves,” says Nathalie, a former history and geography teacher who taught for 38 years at the Saint-Exupéry high school in Mantes-la-Jolie. This unrest is, she says, “self-destructive” because for the most part it involves “indiscriminate violence without a political discourse”. She says: “Of course, they're too young to develop a political argument. Because there's also a weakness in the political fabric of these neighbourhoods.”

“In 2005 [editor's note, when the deaths of two youths, Zyed and Bouna, in a Paris suburb sparked nationwide riots] we sort of almost discovered about police violence,” recalls Nathalie. “It was covered sporadically in the media. But today the stories pile up, it's a chronic problem. What these young people are saying is that they'll no longer be victims and that's important. Even if it's not done in the right way.”

Yazid Kherzi is from the same generation as Sonia and Nathalie and his analysis is similar. A former armed robber, he became a university lecturer and teacher on crime prevention. For him, what is happening now is “more serious” than 2005. “In 2005 there were demands linked to Zyed and Bouna but also over comments made by [then interior minister] Nicolas Sarkozy about 'scum',” he explains. “Today, destroying shops and looting everything, what's that got to do with Nahel's death?”

“We have the youths that we deserve,” says Yazid, putting the blame more on the adults around the young, from parents to local mayors, including teachers and also the police. For more than ten years Yazid has travelled across France, visiting disadvantaged neighbourhoods in his van and holding discussion events at night with young people. He does not understand why social centres “all close at 6pm” when he says that night-time is the best time to forge a link with young people. He also regrets the fact that out of his “500 [discussion] evenings”, never once has a police officer agreed to come and talk to the young people he has gathered together.

Mothers' fears

At the exit of the Souquet gym are three mothers who, after being reticent at first, are in the end relieved to be able to “unburden themselves”. All three ask to remain anonymous, like many residents here in this neighbourhood, given the uncertain atmosphere. Each has either four or five children aged nine to 26. Since Nahel's death they are “beyond anger”, they explain. “Children today can see that there's really no justice. We feel abandoned against a police who can do what they want,” they say.

When they see police officers in the neighbourhood they all react in the same way. “We call out to them straight away 'Where are you from? What are you doing? Go back home!' They reply that we're out of line, that they're doing nothing wrong. But you should see how the police officers approach young people who are chatting in the street: they're aggressive right from the start. And if our children stand up to them, they end up in custody,” they say.

The residents of Le Val Fourré are almost exclusively immigrants and children of immigrants who have experienced racial discrimination. Are the police racist? “I don't like that word, it pains me,” says one of the three mothers. “But I think it exists, yes ...”. Another says: “We tell our children they're like everyone else, that they have to integrate, and adapt. That they're neither victims nor culprits. But what they see is the exact opposite...”

At the Jean-Paul-David stadium several thousand people are watching the finals of the CAN de Mantes football tournament. For the girls, Morocco beat Senegal while for the boys Algeria were victorious against Gambia. The winners are jubilant and the youngsters do not want to speak about anything else. Sonia points out a boy of 13 who was beaten during custody after insulting a police officer. We approach him but he declines to talk about it: “It was my brother, I've forgotten about it,” he says.

We drag a few words out of a high school student before his friends come up and tease him, bringing a swift conclusion to the conversation. “The police badmouth us because we're Blacks,” he said before the interruption. “Since this happened I no longer go out, my parents have banned me, it's for a good reason. What they did to Nahel was serious. And that worries me because it could happen to anyone here.”

Night has fallen at Le Val Fourré. Opposite the Mantes-la-Jolie grand mosque Younès and Nadir are reflecting on the past. “I even noted the date in my diary, hang on,” says Younès. “It was December 6th 2018,” he continues after checking. “A Thursday,” adds Nadir. On that day the two young men, aged 15 and 17 at the time, were taking part in a “peaceful” demonstration outside Saint-Exupéry high school in Le Val Fourré against reforms to the baccalauréat exam and the new Parcoursup university admissions online portal. After some damage was caused, the police intervened and corralled the young protestors. At around 11am Nadir, Younès and more than a hundred other students were arrested by the police and made to kneel on the ground in a line with their hands on their heads. In a video which did the rounds on social media you can hear one of the police officers involved say: “There you are, a class that stays well-behaved.”

Nadir and Younès spent several hours on their knees like this, in the cold. “They wanted to humiliate us,” says Nadir. “These officers were not worthy of their uniform,” adds Younès.

An administrative investigation was later carried out into the incident. The police watchdog, the IGPN, ruled that there was an “absence of misconduct” on the part of the police officers concerned. Nadir, Younès and others then began legal action and in 2020 an investigating judge opened an investigation. It was only two years later, in December 2022, that Younès and Nadir were finally interviewed. Despite the sluggishness of the process, the two young men have “a modicum of hope” that what has become their “cause” will reach a successful conclusion.

When they heard about Nahel's death it “brought things back” they say. “It's not acceptable, it will never be acceptable to have been humiliated in this way,” says Nadir. “Since then I've been afraid of those who are supposed to protect us,” says Younès. “But who is protecting us from them?” asks his former classmate.

Even if they were not surprised by the unrest, Nadir and Younès do not support all of what has taken place. Like some of the older people in the district they regret the fact that youths are targeting the property of individuals. Younès has “respect” for the youths' “awareness” but says that the violence is a “process of self-destruction”. He says: “It's too bad that there's no other route to assert yourself. We've been left behind and forgotten.”

It is around 1am on Sunday July 2nd and a restaurant and several cafés are still open on Le Val Fourré's central esplanade. The only people in the streets are men. The oldest are playing cards, unfazed. The young look around warily. At the two main entrances to the shopping area some shopkeepers are keeping watch, and will do so for several more hours at least.

These shopkeepers talk about the burglary at the mobile phone repair store by “youngsters aged 13 to 17, most of them under 15”. They, too, do not understand why the youths are targeting the “shops, the cars of people from here”. They add: “But we understand their anger. We also loathe the police and it'll never change. We know all the people who have never returned from custody. The police are deeply racist.”

One of the shopkeepers tells a story. He had gone to greet a group of men. Among them were members of the Brigade Anti-criminalité (BAC) unit, which specialises in policing in what are seen as high-risk areas. He says they were “dressed like thugs. They refused to greet me, saying 'We're not one of you.' If I were to see one of them getting trampled on I, too, would tell him 'I'm not one of you.'” There is an inexhaustible flow of stories about the police. But this shopkeeper, a family man, has decided to laugh about it.

Someone else tells another, very recent story. “Two nights ago I was here, keeping watch. The police came and told me: 'Put you hands up!' But they know me! And I was like I am now, barefooted with flip-flops! And, like, I'm going to be a rioter?” The night is still peaceful here, though in the distance there are fireworks going off, cheap mortar fireworks.

The shopkeepers think that local youths, around 60 of them in all, are several streets away. They could arrive at the esplanade wearing masks or hooded. One of the men records a video on Snapchat in which he tells the youths: “I'm with you.” He explains: “I have no power over them. But I tell them that they're family and that I'm monitoring the unrest.” And that if there are clashes with the police he will “show what happened”.

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• The original French version of this article can be found here.

English version by Michael Streeter