Former prefect for equal opportunities in Seine-Saint-Denis, Didier Leschi has headed the French Office for Immigration and Integration since 2016. For Le Point, this outspoken senior official delivers his distressed analysis of the riots that have lasted since Nahel’s death on June 27.
Le Point: As director of the Office of Immigration and Integration, and former prefect in Seine-Saint-Denis, what thoughts do these riots inspire in you?
Didier Leschi: First a great sadness in front of the drama and then the images of destruction. We are dealing with a sort of hostage-taking by a minority of young people, mainly boys or young men, of a population that may experience social difficulties but who are already victims of the destruction of common goods such as services. public, such as libraries, media libraries, schools, police stations. We can add to this the destruction of vehicles, which is also the manifestation of a desire to humiliate those who work.
What is called “popular neighborhoods” are dotted with public spaces, dominated by young men, where women are the primary victims. We have a big demonstration of it. Few or no girls among the rioters. A virilism of rapine and destruction spreads on social networks, the engine of which is a total lack of consideration for others.
Difficult to know, if they exist, the claims of the rioters…
The rioters do not have the ambition to convince neighbours, parents, adults of the correctness of their revolt, and more broadly the population which looks dumbfounded at this destructive competition. Only an inarticulate cry is produced, hence the hunt for journalists, for what to say to them? And even the elect who might be perceived as understanding are personæ non gratæ. I think of the attempt to burn down the communist town hall of Montreuil, for example: what is the message? Nihilistic and destructive jouissance is the opposite of a program. It is a future no, hence the only aspiration in action is that of accessing the material goods produced by a system that has ideologically taken you in hand by making you desire what it produces at all costs. Nothing anti-capitalist in all this, one wants to say to those who believe that this is what it is all about. Not everything that moves is red.
How can the Republic meet the challenge it faces?
Does the police institution as a whole need to question itself?
Thinking about the situation means not wallowing in the stigmatization of the police. I remain in admiration of these law enforcement officers who get up every day to do essential work. It is thanks to them, to their listening, to their professionalism that barbarism does not prevail over the Republic on a daily basis. And even to their selflessness. Raymond Depardon, in a documentary released in 1982, Faits divers, had shown the difficulty of their profession; it has only gotten worse since. Examples are often cited to say that elsewhere in Europe we would do better. We quickly forget that in Sweden, during urban riots, the police only restored order at the cost of live ammunition and even death. Fortunately this is not the case in France. I would add that my experience in the field in Seine-Saint-Denis is rather that of a demand for more police officers than fewer, so much the daily life of the majority is abused by minorities only wanting to move far from the rules of the law, and even elementary civility. All those who for years have gargled the motto “everyone hates the police” only fuel a depoliticization that weakens us collectively. And that only helps the enemies of the Republic.
