Teenagers deaths spark Paris suburb uprisings against France’s anti-immigrant policy and police abuse

The 25 November saw uprisings that lasted for three nights in the Parisian suburb Villiers-le-Bel. No figures where given for the number of injured civilians, but approximately 120 policemen were reported injured. Scores of shops, cars, a school and a library were burned.

The clashes occurred following the deaths of two young African boys (one of Senegalese and the other Moroccan origin) who were killed when the motorbike they were riding was hit by a chasing police car. 16-year-old Larami and 15-year-old Moushin were allegedly driving an unlicensed vehicle without helmets before the collision. Francis Debuire from the Force Ouveiere police union claimed the crash was accidental: "We are sorry about the death of these young people, but it appears that they were unfortunately the victims of a traffic accident”.

However witnesses claim that the police had attempted to flee the scene of the incident. Calbo, a local resident said "They hit them from behind. They saw they were in pain [but] they didn't help. The police tried to drive off by starting their car. They couldn't start their car because it was damaged, so they ran away."

A similar incident sparked a previous uprising in Paris in 2005, when two teenagers were killed allegedly fleeing the police in the suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois. A TV station exposed the prevalent despicable attitudes of police officers towards young migrants when it recorded a vicious verbal assault and screened it on television channel TF1, The camera caught an officer intimidating a young man after stopping him for an identity check. The officer threatened, “You want me to take you to a transformer?” He was making a reference to the electricity station that electrocuted the two teenagers, the incident that ignited the French major city uprisings. The officer menacingly continued using the impolite “tu” rather than “vous”. “We don’t give a s*** if your estate calms down. In fact, the more it gets f****d up the happier we are.”

The uprisings of 2005 and 2007, though sparked by the tragic deaths of the young boys, were also a reaction to the destructive anti-African and anti-immigrant social-political policies that have been imposed by successive French governments, most recently by former Interior Minister and current French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. The police forces' long history of brutality and excessive heavy-handedness against occupants in the banlieusards (Parisian ghettoes populated with mostly African migrants) played a leading role in the anger that spawned the clashes. Famous African-French footballers such as Lillian Thuram and Eric Abidal both of whom are from poor French suburbs themselves, spoke out against the government and its police forces’ actions against the French citizens in 2005. World cup winner Thuram responded, "The most dangerous people are not those who are messing up the suburbs. You really need to think deeply about the root causes.” Barcelona footballer Abidal added, “We have reached breaking point." Omar Sehhouli, brother of one of the victims said that the uprisings were “not about violence but rage”.