Seven cars burned overnight from Wednesday to Thursday in the Zaragoza district of Pau. The fires took place on avenue de Buros, avenue de Saragosse and rue du lieutenant-colonel Boudoube. They come a month later violence and riots in the district of Ousse-Les-Bois and while the district of Zaragoza is appeased, hence some misunderstanding and some anger among the inhabitants. They have the feeling that this news item is a double penalty.
The anger and misunderstanding of the inhabitants
What comes back the most in the mouths of the inhabitants encountered are the material damage. Many think of those who have lost their car and need it in everyday life to go to work or run errands. “We think of them”, “What if it was our car next?” ask many passers-by. There is a form of anger, of incomprehension too. The inhabitants are quite unanimous in expressing their surprise because it has been a long time since cars had burned down in Zaragoza: “I’ve been living there for 19 years, we had cars burned in 2005, maybe 2008 but since then there’s never been anything” explains Marianne, while another resident, who lives rue du lieutenant-colonel Boudoube still cannot believe her eyes : “in seven years I have never seen that” explains this mother. So we wonder: who did this? And why ? Some evoke a neighborhood that is not very lively in the evening, young people left to fend for themselves. Others talk about this youth that has changed. Those are “little jerks” for Marianne. Almost everyone agrees that this is human stupidity. “It’s stupidity, topped with selfishness, because at the time we do it, and then it’s people who afterwards say to themselves – Oh, but we shouldn’t have done that -. But the evil is made !” launches Marianne.
Do not reduce Zaragoza to charred cars
A bad thing for inhabitants deprived of cars, a bad thing also for the image of an entire district. Double trouble there too, while the neighborhood has changed a lot in recent years, it is good to live there in the opinion of all. At the foot of a tower, Khaled comes regularly to see his mother who still lives there. He lives in the countryside, but he assures him if he were to come back to town, it would be in Zaragoza and nowhere else. He’s talking about these buildings that are being destroyed or rebuiltsuccessive works, of this park to walk a stone’s throw away. “Of course, when there are cars burning or when there is violence, it is always shocking. It still exists, but it must be said that since the development was done in this neighborhood, especially the parks etc. the life of the people, the life of the neighborhood has changed enormously” he confides. For him, these cars should not be used as a pretext to stigmatize, it is anecdotal violence.
This is not the case for everyone, especially for a young girl who has always lived in Zaragoza, who is afraid that all these efforts will be shattered, that the neighborhood will again be stigmatized, singled out, reduced to a few cars calcined.