Their memory haunts the political memory. Since the death on June 27 in Nanterre of Nahel M., 17, killed by a police officer for refusing to comply, and the conflagration in several popular neighborhoods, the executive fears to relive the scenario of the riots of 2005. At the time, France had experienced twenty-one consecutive days of violence and urban degradation, in a context, already, of mistrust vis-à-vis the police.
What was the context of this violence?
In 2005, violence in the suburbs was a highly publicized theme, and several episodes raised the question of the proportionality of the police response. Several police interventions resulted in serious injuries or deaths of young people from the suburbs and local riots in response.
This is the case in the Parisian district of Goutte-d’Or (18th arrondissement), at the beginning of March, after the hospitalization in critical condition of Balé T., a 19-year-old drug dealer who was shot in the chest, or in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), where police officers are targeted after the fatal motorcycle accident of Karim, 17, while being pursued by the anti-crime brigade (BAC).
The government, for its part, is deploying a security discourse. On October 24, during a visit to Argenteuil (Val-d’Oise), where a deadly clash between two rival gangs took place in the spring, the highly publicized Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, made an impression saying to its inhabitants, “Are you sick of this bunch of scum? Well we’ll get rid of you! »
What was the trigger for the riots?
On Thursday, October 27, 2005, Zyed Benna and Muhittin Altun, both 17, and Bouna Traoré, 15, returned with friends from a football game in Livry-Gargan (Seine-Saint-Denis) towards Clichy -undergrowth. On the way, they approach a construction site. A witness calls the police to report an attempted burglary, according to the report of the general inspection of services.
A few minutes later, the anti-crime brigade (BAC) arrives on the spot: one of the young people is arrested, the others flee, but are caught by other members of the BAC, called in as reinforcements. To escape them, the three teenagers take refuge in an EDF transformer. An electric arc is formed. Muhittin Altun is seriously injured, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré die of electrocution. On the evening of the death of the two boys, the first riots broke out in Clichy-sous-Bois and in the neighboring town of Montfermeil. The next morning, October 28, twenty-three carcasses of burnt-out cars were counted.
Why have they grown so large?
That same October 28, 2005, the Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, exonerated the police, stating that “the police were not physically pursuing” the two victims. This version, which will be contradicted by the story of the adolescent survivor, adds to the feeling of injustice, believe sociologists Véronique Le Goaziou and Laurent Mucchielli in the collective work When the suburbs burn (La Découverte, 2007).
A second event stirs up the anger of the population of the suburbs. On the evening of October 30, during clashes with young people in Clichy-sous-Bois, the police fired a tear gas grenade near the Bilal mosque. Invaded by smoke, it is evacuated in panic. The rumor circulates while the police sent the grenade directly into the place of worship, causing a major stir which, like an “influenza epidemic”, is gradually spreading to other municipalities. From November 1, the riots spread throughout Seine-Saint-Denis.
From then on, every night for three weeks, young people gathered in the street and ransacked vehicles, buildings and street furniture, first in the Paris region, then in the rest of France. Hundreds of cars are set on fire and feed the television channels spectacular images of chaos, while participation in the degradations takes on a confused character for some young rioters ranging from a feeling of injustice, to pride or a form of recklessness.
How did they end?
On November 8, 2005, after a night marked by more than 1,500 burnt cars and riots in 274 municipalities, a state of emergency was declared. This “shock” therapy, as Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin describes it, notably allows prefects to establish curfews to prohibit gatherings. The police force has been reinforced since November 4. From then on, the riots gradually decreased in intensity, new outbreaks began while the first died out.
On November 14, President Jacques Chirac congratulates the police and deplores “the crisis of meaning” and the “crisis of landmarks” of youth, while assuring them “that they are all the sons and daughters of the Republic “. The night of 17 to 18 November was the last marked by riots at the national level.
What was the outcome?
The three weeks of urban riots resulted in the deaths of three people, who were trying to put out fires. Salah Gaham, building caretaker in Besançon, and Alain Lambert, high school caretaker in Trappes (Yvelines), died of asphyxiation, while Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, in Stains (Seine-Saint-Denis), died after being beaten by a rioter, sentenced to five years in prison in 2005.
According to a count reported by L’Obs, 224 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters were injured, 6,056 rioters arrested, 1,328 imprisoned, 233 public buildings destroyed or damaged and 10,346 vehicles burned.
Regarding the legal consequences of the chase that led to the death of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, two police officers were indicted in 2007 for “failure to assist a person in danger”. They were released in 2015, the judge finding that they did not have a “clear awareness of a serious and imminent danger”. The judgment was upheld on appeal in 2016.
After the 2005 riots, the Minister of the Interior increased the material resources allocated to the police: with the acquisition of 450 flashballs, 7,000 tear gas grenades, explosive grenades, and 5,000 anti-riot helmets. “The consequence of the 2005 riots is therefore in the first place the militarization of the police”, estimated in 2015 the political scientist Fabien Jobard.
In the register of citizen reaction, this episode which put the suburbs at the center of attention also led to the creation, in November 2005, of the Bondy Blog, a media written “by and for working-class neighborhoods”. In his speech on November 14, President Jacques Chirac also announced the launch of voluntary civil service, which came into force in 2010 under Nicolas Sarkozy’s five-year term.