In the fall of 2005, Faisal Daaloul was a young adult protesting in the streets of Clichy-sous-Bois, an impoverished Paris suburb seething over the death of two teenagers as they were pursued by police officers, reports The New York Times.
After the spasms of public anger, he hoped that France would finally turn its attention to its long-neglected suburbs and their minority communities.
Fast forward nearly 20 years. Mr. Daaloul is now a father. He struggled to keep his 18-year-old son from joining recent violent protests set off by the police killing of a teenager that many blamed on racist attitudes. Mr. Daaloul is of Tunisian descent and his wife is Black, and he fears that his son would be a perfect target for the police.
“Little has changed in two decades,” Mr. Daaloul said. “The schools and the police are no better. 2005 has been useless.”
In reality, much has changed. After the 2005 riots, the French government invested billions of euros to revamp its immigrant suburbs, or banlieues, to try to rid them of run-down social-housing blocks. But the similarity of the recent riots, and what spurred them, almost a generation later has raised questions about whether the efforts to improve conditions in the banlieues have failed.
Residents of the neighborhoods and experts say the redevelopment programs have, indeed, fallen well short of their goals, even as they acknowledge the many changes the efforts have brought. The reasons for the failure, they say: Change has come too slow, and, perhaps more important, the government programs have done little to address deeper, debilitating issues of poverty and discrimination.
“We took action on the buildings, but not on the people who lived in them,” said François Dubet, a sociologist at the University of Bordeaux, in southwestern France. “Unemployment remains very high, racism is still a commonplace experience, discrimination is a daily reality, and the youth and the police continue to clash.”
Clichy-sous-Bois embodies the challenges facing France. The city was the center of the 2005 riots and has since become something of a laboratory for the changes promised by various governments. New social housing has sprung up in many neighborhoods. A government-funded cultural center opened in 2018 for musicians and artists who needed space to practice and work. A metro line is scheduled to open in three years.
But when riots broke out across the country after the recent police shooting, Clichy-sous-Bois was hit hard again: Dozens of cars burned and public buildings were targeted, including the city hall and a library.
“These cities have been profoundly transformed by urban renewal,” Olivier Klein, France’s minister for cities and housing and the former mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois, said in an interview. “But government action takes time and some people, especially the youth, have yet to see the transformation of their neighborhoods, so they rightly feel they are being mistreated.”
Young people in the area agree, and say their anger transcends resentment against the police, who are often accused of brutal treatment of people of color. In interviews during a recent visit to the neighborhood, they spoke of being “treated like dogs” when applying for jobs, of their frustration at not having a soccer pitch to play on, of their fury at not being hired as extras when films are shot in their neighborhood.
Several of the young people interviewed acknowledged in hushed tones that they had participated in the recent unrest, shooting fireworks at public buildings and the police.
Read more of this illustrated report from The New York Times.