The public authorities in Toulouse have softened their tone in recent days after a number of flare-ups and confrontations between young people and police in deprived districts during the coronavirus lockdown.
Back on April 3rd, two weeks after the start of the lockdown, the mayor of this city in south-west France, Jean-Luc Moudenc, issued a tough statement after incidents involving the police and some young residents in the La Reynerie district. He called on police to “get more involved in these issues, to step up efforts in certain neighbourhoods”. And the mayor said he was was going to ask the local state representative – the prefect – to consider ordering a “curfew”.
But on Friday April 24th Jean-Luc Moudenc adopted a different tone when he began his now weekly video press conference by talking at length about the dozen priority districts in the city – which together are home to around 60,000 residents – and detailing the support measures adopted by the city authorities to help them and other areas. And when Mediapart asked the mayor whether the curfew option was still an option he dismissed the question and said it was a matter for the prefect. In fact, it seems a curfew is no longer under consideration.
So what has caused this marked change in tone? One theory is that the disturbances that broke out in several estates and deprived areas around France after police violence in Villeneuve-la-Garenne north-west of Paris on April 19th – witnesses say a police officer deliberately opened his car door on a passing motorcyclist, who broke his leg as a result – have spooked the authorities. In Toulouse, for example, there were a number of reports of trouble after that highly-publicised Villeneuve-la-Garenne incident, and then some flare-ups on Tuesday April 21st in La Reynerie, traditionally one of the most volatile neighbourhoods in the Grand-Mirail area of south Toulouse.
The local prefecture described the incidents in Toulouse as “short-lived episodes” with a number of rubbish bins and six cars set alight. No arrests have been made but “inquiries led by the prosecution authorities are ongoing to find out who was responsible for this aggression towards police officers”, it said. On Saturday April 25th the local newspaper La Dépêche reported on a skirmish the previous evening in the same district, with a police vehicle attacked during a patrol. In fact since the start of France's coronavirus lockdown on March 17th, other skirmishes of this kind have taken place in Toulouse, including one on April 10th when a police officer used his Taser during an arrest, and on April 18th in Bellefontaine, next to La Reynerie, where a chase involving a police car ended in an accident.
A sizeable section of the local press systemically report such incidents by employing two well-worn descriptions: “irresponsible ambush by juvenile delinquents” and “dealers destabilised by a shortage in supplies” due to the lockdown. As elsewhere, this second issue plays an important role in the tense atmosphere that exists in some neighbourhoods across France where drug dealing is a major slice of the local economy. But that alone does not explain the current situation in such districts in Toulouse. “The mainstream media and the majority of councillors have an extremely incomplete understanding of what happens in these neighbourhoods,” said Hugo, a young activist from the local Vérite et Justice 31 ('Truth and Justice') committee. The number 31 refers to the number of the département or county of Haute-Garonne where Toulouse is located. “And they completely miss the fact that the violence comes mainly from the state and the institutions,” he added.
Leïla, a resident from Bellefontaine, said: “When my son, who's peaceful, goes out with his hood on I tell him to watch out for the police. Frankly, as far as we're concerned it's simply an act of putting up a barrier, like people have always done, especially boys.”
But this mother of six children, whose youngest three go to secondary, middle and primary school, is most worried about what comes next. “It's hard to get a handle on the end of this lockdown, the information is a bit contradictory. You get the feeling that those who are making the decisions are a bit lost,” she said, going on to describe a form of “weariness” that has fallen over her neighbourhood. Camille, who lives in Bagatelle, another district in Le Grand-Mirail, also spoke about the mood. “The atmosphere is curious,” he said. “It's a combination somewhere between tiredness and that lazy feeling you have at the start of summer but without the festivals; we're on estates where people normally go outside but now the barbecues remain unused, there's an oppressive, depressed aspect to it...”
Enlargement : Illustration 1
A form of low-intensity social tension has gradually built up in such neighbourhoods, a tension made worse by the lockdown. Without waiting to be asked, local collective groups, residents and associations have responded by providing mutual support and help. Their initiative is called 'Our solidarity is not confined' – 'confined' is a play on words, as the French term for lockdown is 'confinement'. And a package of measures collecting “food, healthcare, equipment and financial donations for the most vulnerable” has been set in motion in all of Toulouse's districts. By April 20th some 15,000 euros had already been collected.
Another project is to provide help with virtual or online homework. “It started from the grassroots,” said Gallé, from the Vérité et Justice committee, which is behind the project. “We linked up with Izards Attitude, an associations from the [city's] northern neighbourhoods who are reviving a homework help [project] with a mums collective, while we were in contact with families from neighbourhoods in the south [of the city] who very quickly passed on their huge concerns about carrying on with schooling at home. Many of them don't have the tools, do not speak good French, or don't know how to do it...”
Having attracted both volunteers and struggling pupils – from middle and secondary schools – via a Facebook page, the collective identifies the needs and resources available and then puts the individuals in touch with each other. There are around 100 volunteers already and some 70 pupils are being helped. “And we have requests from both sides coming in each day,” said Gallé. On Saturday April 25th the Izards Attitude association launched 'La chorba des Izards' – chorba is a type of stew from North Africa – an initiative in which people can reserve meals “during the entire period of Ramadan, to be collected between 4pm and 7.30pm”. Several help and support groups have been set up on social media, especially Facebook, to spread the news. There is also a 'monitoring group' on WhatsApp where members of local associations and local residents keep a close eye on what is going on in the neighbourhood and try to anticipate issues in advance.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
“We are created a monitoring link, in particular with the Prefecture, to flag up the families that are most in difficulty,” said 'Mira' – not her real name – who is president of a cultural association operating in the Grand-Mirail area. This group is getting ready to play an important role this summer “when the kids are going to come out of lockdown and people won't be heading off for the countryside. We're going to have to be on hand and offering things,” she said.
Meanwhile Christophe Alvès, who is assistant mayor for Toulouse and also mayor of the district, boasts of the “breadth of the voluntary sector scene in Mirail”. He also refers to the initiatives carried out by the local district mayors, such as the “lending of tablets and computers”.
On Friday April 24th Toulouse mayor Jean-Luc Moudenc spoke about 90 loans of this kind and highlighted the distribution of “food vouchers worth €2.50 a meal per day during the lockdown” to around 12,000 children in the city, and pointed to the start of “social and educative” trips around the various districts that have been organised since April 15th.
But for Gallé and Hugo from Vérité et Justice 31 these initiatives have been “a little late” in coming. They point out that their “appeal” to the local authorities at the end of March for “families to be supplied with the tools and devices to ensure continuity of schooling and to set up learning spaces so people could take possession of these tools” had been met with “zero response”.
Is it the fear of seeing the deprived districts “go up in flames” that has led the city authorities to get more of a grip on such issues in recent weeks? Christophe Alvès denies this. “We are adapting as we go along to this crisis, on the basis of the needs of the area and the government's announcements, we're not adjusting our timing to just anything,” he said.
Nonetheless, it is clear that over the last two weeks both voluntary groups and organisations and the local authorities have been careful not to add to tensions in the city's more volatile districts. “I was present on the evenings when it flared up in La Reynerie and what I mostly saw were attempts to reduce the tension, the police didn't rush in like lunatics,” said Mira. In Bagatelle Camille pointed out that “in the last fortnight the police have been less aggressive. They are still patrolling but they are stopping and fining people less, it's quite marked. We don't know if it's because of orders or a lack of personnel or both ...”
The local police authority, the Direction Départementale de la Sécurité Publique (DDSP), were unable to give Mediapart any figures on how many on-the-spot fines had been handed out. But on April 7th Nelson Brouard, the DDSP's local director, spoke of around “5,000 contraventions in the Toulouse police district” with “some difficulties in QPVs [editor's note, priority districts such as La Reynerie]”. On Friday April 24th mayor Jean-Luc Moudenc said 3,630 fines or tickets had been issued by the city's police since March 24th, but was not able to state how many had been given in the various districts.
The groups on the ground in these neighbourhoods are also wary of falling into the trap of “idealising” any rebellious actions. “The anger of young people is clearly legitimate and in some districts the behaviour of the police is unacceptable.” said Mira. “But when it boils up like that what I see first and foremost is young people with very vulnerable backgrounds - and problems that the current period is making worse – becoming more exposed. More than anything, I don't want to see it end with them getting three years in jail.”
At the same time, local groups are determined not to ignore the reality of police violence and they are continuing to document the very fragile social and economic reality of such neighbourhoods. “Our committee has around ten cases concerning police violence that we have already taken up since the start of the lockdown,” said Hugo. “These are serious cases but we're holding off talking about them because we want to be able to give clear and sourced information. The people involved are in difficult, vulnerable situations, and they are hesitant about speaking out, exposing themselves and so on. That, more than anything, is the reality in the neighbourhoods and the lockdown doesn't change anything.”
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The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter