Teen killed by French police led to boiler explosion due to pressure

In Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, riots broke out after a police officer fatally shot a 17-year-old boy named Nahel M. The investigation into his death is still ongoing, but the situation has already sparked protests and anger. Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, the incident is part of a complex and deep-rooted problem in France. It recalls the violence that engulfed the city's suburbs in 2005, which lasted more than three weeks and forced the country to declare a state of emergency. Many of the problems underlying those events are still unresolved and may have been exacerbated by the increasingly deteriorating relationship between the police and the population.

In my extensive work in the suburban areas of Paris, Lyon and Marseille, I have seen and heard first-hand the complaints that are now being heard on the streets of Nanterre.

The suburbs and poverty

Some suburbs of major French cities have suffered for decades from what has been described as the worst "hypermarginalization" in Europe. Poor housing and education, combined with geographic isolation and racism, make it nearly impossible for people to change their situation. It has long been argued that people living in poor suburbs face discrimination based on the very fact of living in those neighborhoods when seeking employment. Even just having a certain name on your resume can exclude you from employment due to widespread racial discrimination. Dissatisfaction among young people in these places has been building up for decades. The first riots of the kind now taking place in Paris took place in Lyon back in the 1990s. And yet, except in moments of crisis, there seems to be little discussion among the French leadership about how to solve the problems that cause such anger in the suburbs. President Emmanuel Macron presents himself as a proponent of reindustrializing France and revitalizing the economy. But his vision includes no plan to use economic growth to create opportunity in the suburbs or, conversely, to use the potential of the suburbs to spur economic growth. In two presidential terms, he has failed to offer coherent policies to address some key suburban issues.

Police brutality

The issue of police brutality is of great concern in France at the moment, not only because of the Nanterre incident. Earlier this year, the Council of Europe's International Organization for Human Rights unusually criticized French police for "excessive use of force" during protests against Macron's pension reforms.

The police are stuck in extremis. During a recent interview I helped conduct for a documentary in the suburbs of Marseille, residents pointed to the consistent reduction of police officers in contact with the community based in these neighborhoods as a major cause of tension between the community and the police. Protests, in turn, are met with tear gas and batons. Successive governments have used the police to control the population and prevent political upheaval by destroying the legitimacy of law enforcement. Still, the police are extremely hostile to reform, which favors their powerful unions and Macron himself, who needs the police to quell opposition to his reforms. Local residents clashed with police after the death of a teenager.

Macron v. Sarkozy

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy famously stoked tensions during the 2005 riots, calling participants "passers-by" who needed to be "flushed out" of the suburbs. Macron has also been repeatedly criticized for arogynous behavior during his political career, having made numerous gaffes, including suggesting an unemployed worker "cross the street" to find a job. However, his conciliatory reaction to Nahel's death is very different from Sarkozy's position. He called the killing "inexcusable" and held a crisis meeting to find a solution to the problem. Perhaps they shouldn't have attended an Elton John concert during the riots, and the comments about young people being "poisoned" by video games were somewhat misguided, but Macron at least tried to calm tensions rather than inflame them. One of the main problems for him, however, is the diffuse, decentralized nature of the protesters. There is no leadership to meet and negotiate with, and no specific demands to be met to relieve the tension. As in 2005, the riots are spontaneous, sometimes one neighborhood at a time. This makes it very difficult for the government to stop the escalation. And it underscores the need for a much more comprehensive and thoughtful response to the problems of decades of entrenched poor social prospects and police brutality in the suburbs of French cities.