“We're not stooges, fill-ins, or window dressing,” says Almamy Kanouté, who lives in the Groux neighbourhood of Fresnes in the southern suburbs of Paris. He is a campaigner with the Comité Adama – which works for justice after the death of Adama Traoré in police custody in 2016 - and the local representative body the Assemblée des quartiers. As an activist who fights against injustice, Almamy Kanouté says he is “ready to block everything” for the planned September 10th protest in France. But he does not want people from working-class districts who take part just to be confined to the role of “good followers, good soldiers” who “simply follow the struggle”.
The place of citizens from working class and multi-ethnic neighbourhoods in the September 10th mobilisation remains one of the protest's weak points, according to many people to whom Mediapart has spoken. However, this day of “shutting everything down”, which is a response to the tough budget proposed by François Bayrou and his government, is nonetheless attracting support in many working-class towns, encouraged by some lively public meetings. On September 1st, in Saint-Denis in the northern suburbs of Paris, some hastily-made handwritten notes, scrawled in highlighter and signed “Bloquons tout” ('let's block everything'), promoted a meeting near the “pont de l’écluse”, a local lock bridge. The footbridges across the nearby Saint-Denis canal were also decked out with banners calling for the country to be shut down.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Around 100 locals, in raincoats and with rucksacks on their backs, gathered on the grass of a small public garden tucked between the Saint-Denis canal and the wide strips of tarmac of the A1. Hawa Traoré, wearing a white headscarf and leggings, was quietly sitting on a bench some 20 metres away, not taking part in the gathering. She lives in the nearby working-class district of Francs-Moisins. “I came to sit here to see what kind of meeting it was. Unfortunately people don’t know, it wasn’t stated.” The mother of four children, who is a cleaner at a hospital, then jokes: “There aren’t many skins like mine here today. I was thinking: so is this a gathering against us Blacks or what?”
Those at the gathering were mainly pensioners, students and civil servants, alongside independent activists and anarchists. It was a typical crowd from the traditional Left, noticeably whiter than the Saint-Denis residents who usually come to this patch of green located opposite the national sports stadium, the Stade de France. The locals to whom Mediapart spoke seemed aware of the blockades planned for September 10th, but did not themselves want to join in. At a table nearby Yassine, a baker, said he would not strike, but he did complain about bosses who “take advantage”.
“I’m on their side, but I steer clear of them,” says Abdourrahim, who works in catering. “I knew the ‘yellow vests’ [editor's note, the protesters whose actions rocked France in 2018 and 2019], I work in the 8th arrondissement [in central Paris]. It was tough, I always ended up in the middle of it. The police see you with a cap, you’re always a target.”
'Why are we leafletting?'
At the public meeting itself, 'Nasser' – not his real name - spoke with a gravelly voice that carried a long way as he called for the creation of a protest struggle that was “in the image of Saint-Denis”, one that operated alongside “workers, comrades from teaching, the railways, working-class districts”.
Nasser, who is in his 20s and works in education in the Saint-Denis area, continued: “People in these neighbourhoods are in the front line when it comes to the government’s harsh policies.” He spoke of the need to “widen the movement's slogans”. And he added: “If we don’t speak of housing, slums, police violence, [identity] documents, [immigration] detention centres and all that, of course we don’t feel part of it here,” he said. “For me the key question is: why are we leafletting?”
That view echoes the thoughts of Hawa Traoré, who speaks unprompted of the “everyday struggles” that fuel her own commitment. These involve “police violence” and “everything to do with housing”.
Jalalle Essalhi, head of the community café Le Tilia in nearby Le Blanc-Mesnil, put it this way: “These struggles are born from real-life experiences, and are often ignored or hidden away by the generalised movements. We don’t live the same relationship to the state; one group suffers this daily violence at the state's hands, another bemoans the state's retreat [from people's lives]. This disconnect makes it hard to come together so long as these truths are not recognised and put at the centre of the debate.”
When she speaks of what drives her, Hawa Traoré mentions the name of Diangou Traoré, the person who told her about the September 10th protest. Diangou Traoré did not attend this public meeting herself but was instead checking in with several young people further away. In her 40s, she is well known in the Francs-Moisins area, having fought for ten years against police violence and for decent housing in a part of Saint-Denis that has been scarred by urban renewal and the impact of work carried out for the Olympic and Paralympic Games last year.
Active with the radical-left La France insoumise (LFI) party and co-founder of the Francs-Moisins citizens group, she sees herself as a “spokesperson”, handing out leaflets and posters in letter boxes, outside schools or at the market. “I do popular education,” as she puts it. An employee of the state social security system, she also shares notes “verbally” about public meetings. “I post on every Snapchat and WhatsApp group. We must block everything,” she insists.
Protecting those at the sharp end
Diangou Traoré says her neighbours are “not very receptive” to the protest at the moment but believes that “it will build up”. She explains: “It’s metro, work, survival. And they're so busy surviving that it will be hard.” Her words echo the sense of the “state of emergency” that Almamy Kanouté depicts in Fresnes. They also tie in with the sentiments of Jalalle Essalhi in Blanc-Mesnil who says: “Evictions, hardship, police violence, institutionalised isolation: that leaves little room to set up public meetings. The struggles exist, but they're often quiet, fragmented, defensive in nature.”
Still, Diangou Traoré has hope for what might happen after September 10th. “The momentum will grow and they won’t have a choice but to attach themselves to it,” she says. She is counting on the young people, who have “their own network, their own way of organising”. “We saw it during the revolts for Nahel in 2023,” she explains, referring to the unrest after 17-year-old Nahel was shot dead at a police roadblock in a Paris suburb in 2023. “The first thing Darmanin [editor's note, Gérald Darmanin was interior minister at the time] said to cut was Snapchat, not WhatsApp, not Telegram. Because he knows Snap is dangerous. And it moves very fast.”
“For now, we have a structured movement, with unions behind the activists there. In popular culture, it's more about spontaneous movements,” says Amal Bentounsi in Meaux to the north-east of Paris. In particular, these movements break out “in reaction” to police violence. The activist has fought on this issue since the death of her brother Amine, who was shot dead by a policeman in 2012.
A candidate for the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) broad leftwing political grouping in the 2024 parliamentary elections, Amal Bentounsi sees alliances as “still difficult”, even if awareness of the issue of police repression has spread to other sections of society since the yellow vest protests. “We are watchers, we see how it goes to see if we'll join in,” she says. “For people who suffer discrimination, ID checks, and are attacked in the media all year, we ask ourselves: won’t they put the blame back on us?”
“We won’t take the risk of taking to the street, of facing repression, just because other groups have chosen to block the country,” warns Almamy Kanouté, the activist from Fresnes. “We know who's first in line to benefit. We must protect ourselves when we're the ones who suffer the most day to day.” “Calling on the neighbourhoods to join risky actions, without guarantees, without collective protection, without a clear strategy, it's reckless,” agrees Jalalle Essalhi, the community leader in Blanc-Mesnil.
'Not without us'
“The wider struggle must be prepared in advance,” says Almamy Kanouté. “We can't have: ‘Right, let’s set up a struggle, join us.’ We, too, are concerned by these issues, but the very least that needs to be done is to talk with the groups who have been active for years on the ground, and that hasn’t been done.” He notes: “In reality, doing it without us means being against us.”
Almamy Kanouté says he has received no message or invitation to join the initiative, and has not been asked to attend any meeting. That is essential, in his view, in a movement as vague as the September 10th one. “Social media isn't enough now. How do I know who's behind this number, this call? I’m wary.”
“There's been no discussions, either with unions or with political groups. We feel like the fifth wheel,” agrees Mohamed Mechmache in Clichy-sous-Bois in Paris's eastern suburbs. The head and founder of ACLEFEU, which promotes social dialogue, and co-founder of the association ‘Pas sans nous’ ('Not without us'), whose aim is to get the voice of local districts heard, displays the same anger as his colleagues in Fresnes. “Once again they want to keep us out of sight, rather than include us, despite a history in these neighbourhoods, despite the activists. It's not a political desert,” he declares.
For him, the situation feels like yet another example of being overlooked by a “section of the Left that's accustomed to speaking without us”. He stresses: “Once again, it just needed those most involved to get together, to create a space and build something together. No, we're not coming just to be tacked on to a plan where people have already decided everything.” Mohamed Mechmache says he intends to “create a more favourable relationship, to get ourselves heard”.
Amine Kessaci, who lives in the Frais Vallon district of the southern city of Marseille, who is aged “21, soon 22”, and who is a former green candidate in the 2024 parliamentary election, also makes apparent his “horror of people who act in my place”. Speaking from the city's northern districts, he speaks of a September 10th protest that is “creating a buzz”. The young man from Marseille says he has met jobless mothers who want to march, and speaks of youths who are full of anger when it comes to social and justice issues. “The young tell you: ‘When there’s the slightest doubt, they raid our homes and we’re in custody the next day. As for the ministers, they do what they want. They've got money, they’re fine. Yet us, if we make a small slip, we go to jail.’”
Regarding the September 10th protest, the activist smiles. “We’ll be there, come what may. We’re scared of no one,” he insists. Not even the police, the far-right and the narrative of “Nicolas qui paye”, the rallying cry of white-collar workers who feel they are picking up the social bill for people on benefits? “I'm from a city where we have had violent raids [editor's note, the speaker is referring to organised attacks against people of North African origins]. I remember Ibrahim Ali, a young Black man killed by [far-right] Front National poster boys. I'm talking about a city where we are aware of that danger, but I also come from a city where we face a fight head-on.” For Amine Kessaci “it’s now or never”. He adds: “We don’t have time to waste, we can't allow our mothers to carry on suffering, to allow people to continue to stoop, carry and work until they're 65.”
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter