In many popular neighborhoods, young people attacked public buildings during urban violence. Part of the political class responded by pointing to the failure of state funding.
Calm has finally returned to the neighborhoods, after almost a week of urban violence following the death of Nahel in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine). Emmanuel Macron has promised the mayors of the affected municipalities an express reconstruction thanks to a “emergency law”. He was more vague, on the other hand, on the future of the vast construction site of the policy of the city, this set of state reforms directed specifically towards priority districts in difficulty. The President of the Republic does not think that the solution lies in a new envelope allocated to housing, he explained to the city councilors, Tuesday, July 4.
However, the city’s policy should make it possible to bridge the gap between underprivileged neighborhoods and the rest of the country. “There would be nothing worse than this period putting city politics on trial“, proclaimed Monday on franceinfo Olivier Klein, minister delegate in charge of this subject. The resurgence of a movement on an unprecedented scale since 2005, the year of the death of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, is it the sign that she has failed?
The policy of the city was however born in response to riots, those of 1989 in Vaulx-en-Velin (Rhône). After 2005, it did not experience any major changes, as it had already experienced a turning point with the Borloo law of 2003, which notably created the National Agency for Urban Renewal (Anru). Its activity is undeniable: within the framework of its first program, between 2004 and 2020, it invested 12 billion euros to renovate 600 neighborhoods considered to be priorities, by rehabilitating social housing, by destroying towers to rebuild new dwellings and by installing new public facilities in a desire to open up. A second program, launched in 2014, should also make it possible to transform 450 neighborhoods by 2030.
Strokes of paint that are not everything
“Improvements since 2005 have concerned housing and transport”observes sociologist Fabien Truong, professor at the University of Paris 8, who followed a group of young people from Seine-Saint-Denis for ten years. “We have renovated and reconnected a little more outlying neighborhoods”without completely eliminating the insalubrity. “These operations allowed changes in the urban form, we cannot say that they had no effect”agrees Thomas Kirszbaum, sociologist specializing in urban policy, associate researcher at the University of Lille.
But it’s not entire neighborhoods that are changing. The renovations are done gradually, “by nibbling”. Thus, in Nanterre, the district where Nahel lived is the subject of an Anru program. One of the emblematic “Cloud towers” must be destroyed, some become private housing to encourage social diversity, others are renovated but remain in the social park.
During the riots, the young inhabitants did not spare the buildings supposed to concretize the investment of the State in these districts, their own public services, including schools, town halls or media libraries. For sociologist Julien Talpin, researcher at the University of Lille and specialist in politicization in working-class neighborhoods, these places are targeted as symbols of the state.
“Neighborhood residents attribute the root of their problems to the idea that the state has betrayed them and treats them like cheap citizens.”
Julien Talpin, sociologistat franceinfo
“Everyone wants to live in a nice place”but having new buildings is not enough “if you don’t have a job, or food in the fridge”, warns Fabien Truong. According to him, the “strokes of paint” can even be seen as “humiliating” when they are not accompanied by real changes in neighborhood life.
A still distant social mix
However, the city’s policy is not limited to renovating blocks of buildings. Most of the funds committed by the State finance social programs and calls for projects intended for local associations. But these credits have experienced a contrasting evolution. After peaking at nearly 800 million euros annually in the years following the 2005 riots, they have steadily declined, hitting bottom in 2018 (409 million), before starting to rise. (link in PDF). In the finance bill for 2023, nearly 600 million euros are allocated to it. A significant budget to support the associative fabric, but which should not be overestimated, because it is aimed at 5.5 million people in more than 1,500 districts. “It represents less than 10 euros per month per inhabitantrecalls Thomas Kirszbaum. What can we do with this amount to change people’s lives? Not much”.
Public action observers point to a long-standing imbalance in favor of financing the renovation of buildings, rather than social action. Thomas Kirszbaum analyzes it as the result “of a form of reluctance to give the impression that we are doing more for the people of the neighborhoods”on which weighs “uvery strong suspicion of assistantship” from part of public opinion and politicians. Focusing on the living environment has however shown its limits, says Julien Talpin: “When we compare to the images of 2005, the progress is undeniable. But for whom? Some of the inhabitants had to leave these renovated neighborhoods and did not benefit from them”.
These operations have failed to diversify the population of these areas, where the Prime Minister of 2015, Manuel Valls, denounced a form of“territorial, social and ethnic apartheid”. “City policy does not attract less socially disadvantaged households to neighborhoods”even decided in 2020 a report by the Court of Auditors (link in PDF). “Ihe social ghettos formed sixty years ago are still ghettos, despite the renovations of facades”summarizes with franceinfo the mayor of Trappes (Yvelines), Ali Rabeh.
“Living in these neighborhoods means leaving at birth with a huge delay to catch up on. And everyone is aware of this despite some great successes that allow them to hang on.”
Ali Rabeh, Mayor of Trappesat franceinfo
“With its meager means, the city’s policy does not manage to compensate for the structural under-staffing of these districts”, says sociologist Thomas Kirszbaum. They certainly benefit from dedicated resources, but are sometimes less well served by ordinary public services. The difficulties of education are particularly singled out. In a report on the situation of Seine-Saint-Denis in 2018, the deputies François Cornut-Gentille (LR) and Rodrigue Kokouendo (LREM) noted in particular a particularly low rate of replacement of teacher absences. “The profusion of resources of REP and REP+ establishments loses its meaning if, in the end, the children of these establishments in difficult areas, who need them the most, benefit from fewer lessons than the others”they wrote.
The “cheque policy” rejected after the riots
The difficulties of National Education also reflect on employment in these priority neighborhoods, where the unemployment rate is more than twice the national average. “The gap does not tend to narrow. Before the health crisis, it had even increased slightly”worried the Court of Auditors in 2022, denouncing the weight of poverty and school dropout.
Questioning the shortcomings of the city’s politics to explain the recent riots, however, has limits in the eyes of researchers. “These revolts are above all the failure of the national police”, points out Thomas Kirszbaum. And the action of law enforcement in working-class neighborhoods is not considered part of city policy. In this matter, the Ministry of the Interior is sovereign. In the 1980’s, “there have been many attempts to involve the police in local partnerships” with other public services and associations, but this logic was reversed in the early 2000s, symbolizing the end of local policing, sums up the sociologist: “Today, the police operate as a foreign actor in the neighborhood, which is not likely to create bonds of trust”.
So, what will be the next response from the executive? It’s hard to imagine greater investment in the areas that have flared up, says Thomas Kirszbaum: “I find it hard to see what would make Emmanuel Macron lean in this direction, when he is engaged in a race with the right, which is itself in a race with the far right”. These two political forces pull in the opposite direction: the boss of the LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, rejected the “cheque policy” on franceinfowhile on France 2, Marine Le Pen, head of the RN group in the Assembly, judged “deeply unfair” of “pouring billions of public money” on the “difficult neighborhoods”.
While the government was to present a plan called “2030 neighborhoods” on June 30, postponed due to the riots, Emmanuel Macron now wants to temporize. Majority figures like Bruno Le Maire immediately ruled out the idea of new funding. In the eyes of the Minister of Economy, “the unity of the nation will not be bought with billions”.