After another night of urban violence, the mayor of La Courneuve Gilles Poux calls for a rethink of the public policies carried out in priority neighborhoods.
“Stop calling for calm“and work”on the needs of working-class neighborhoods“, pleaded Friday June 30 on franceinfo Gilles Poux, PCF mayor of La Courneuve (Seine-Saint-Denis), after the urban violence which has affected several municipalities in France in recent days since the death of Nahel, 17, killed by a policeman in Nanterre, Tuesday, during a roadside check.
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According to Gilles Poux, co-signer of a column published in Le Monde a few weeks ago calling for an emergency plan for the suburbs, “public policies are not fully at work in territories like ours“. He finds that “contempt translates into movements“such as those that are unfolding at the moment.”When anger seizes a particularly deprived youth, it puts our Republic in fragility.”
franceinfo: Last month, you were among the signatories of a column published in the newspaper Le Monde which called for an emergency plan for the suburbs. Do you feel like you’ve been screaming into the void?
Gilles Lice : Unfortunately yes. For more than 30 years, we have been talking about so-called priority neighborhoods. We have invested a lot in the hard, but on social issues, we are still in a fallow situation. This is what led me personally, in 2009, to lodge a complaint with the Halde for social and territorial discrimination, to draw up an atlas of inequalities in 2019 which shows that public policies are not fully at work on territories like ours. All this, after a while, leads to these devastating effects when there is a tragedy that occurs like that of Nanterre, where people have the feeling of being despised. And it’s anger, revolt all over the place, in the wrong way when it attacks public facilities. But it is an anger that is understandable.
This forum brought together a group of mayors from all political stripes. Did you get an answer?
We did not have a real answer, except that we were going to launch Quartiers 2030, but without any really additional means. And in the first discussions that we had with the prefectures on the new contours of these priority districts, we are already told that there will be no financial contributions. As long as we remain in a situation where we do not take the measure of the stakes of public policies in these territories, of the means that must be put in place to restore equality and restore hope, we will lock them in a situation where these audiences have the feeling of being despised. At some point, contempt translates into movements like we can experience right now, when there is a serious incident that occurs.
“Along with that, these same people have experienced that when there are peaceful protests with the excessively powerful pension movement they are not heard either.”
Gilles Liceat franceinfo
In 2020, you said that there is such a feeling of injustice and inequality that we are not immune to an explosion. Are we there?
Yes. By dint of maintaining a soil and asking, with small distributions, with the work of associations, with the work of communities, to be these daily firefighters, it does not work, it cannot hold. And when it accumulates, it explodes and this is the case today. It’s terrible because we’re breaking common property. Personally, I called for each and everyone not to mistake the opponent in this legitimate anger. But when anger takes over and seizes a particularly disadvantaged youth, it unfortunately goes all over the place, and it puts our Republic in a fragile state.
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How to respond today to this crisis?
I think we have to stop calling for calm because it has no chance of being heard. You have to look reality in the face. We would need to have a strong word that says, ‘there is a drama that has happened, that has happened, that is inadmissible. But there is something else behind, we have heard. These frustrations, we have heard them. And we are ready to launch a major convention to work on the issues and the needs of this country’s youth and these working-class neighborhoods. And we are ready to put additional resources into it. I think that if a message like that was expressed strongly, it would be likely to restore hope.