the government faces the specter of new riots in the suburbs

No incident last night, but the La Courneuve police station was targeted by mortar fire on Sunday March 17, and the government is faced with the specter of the return of riots in the suburbs. Like an air of déjà vu with the same setting, namely the department of Seine-Saint-Denis. The same actors, an 18-year-old killed in a collision with a police car after refusing to comply. And the same outbreak of violence against the police with around fifty individuals attacking a police station with mortar fire. The circumstances of the death of young Wanys last week in Aubervilliers are not the same as those of Nahel who triggered the riots at the beginning of last summer. An investigation is open. And the police chief hurried to communicate. But on the political level, it is indeed the same role play, worn out to the core, which is starting again.

On the one hand, a government which displays its firmness and goes all out by deploying a non-standard security system, because above all it fears that violence will spread to the suburbs. On the other, apprentice sorcerers who blow on the embers. On the far left where the former NPA candidate Philippe Poutou urges violence by describing the attack on a police station as “nice fireworks”or on the side of the Insoumis, who hurry to accuse what they call the “systemic racism of the police”. But also on the far right where Marine Le Pen hopes to take advantage of the disorder by accusing Emmanuel Macron of “plunging France into permanent chaos”. And in the middle, local elected officials, on the front line, who call for calm and try to play mediators. A bad film seen and re-watched for almost 20 years and the riots of 2005.

Ineffective martial postures

To break this infernal mechanism, we must undoubtedly give control back to local actors, elected officials, associations, or local police, that is to say to those who keep the social fabric in the suburbs together on a day-to-day basis. The State is in its role when it wants to restore order, as well as justice, which must deal with tragic news events. But year after year, and under all majorities, we see that martial postures are not enough. The suburbs are an explosive issue that has stuck to Emmanuel Macron’s soles since the burial of the Borloo plan in 2018. It is above all a citizen issue that deserves better than to serve, with each eruption of violence, as a political experimentation ground. to apprentice sorcerers of all stripes.