In Vitry-sur-Seine in the Val-de-Marne, Lufiane N'Dongola, 42, spent three nights outside chatting with young people around Avenue Roger-Derry, located near the town hall and in the popular district of "May 8, 1945". This city in the suburbs of Paris had to face the violence that followed the death of the young Nahel, killed Tuesday, June 27 in Nanterre during a police check. "The nights were very virulent in Vitry, from Wednesday evening tram shelters were broken, garbage cans burned, shops robbed," says the president of the association Lol'idays, which has been carrying out social actions and popular education with families and young people for 10 years.

"From 23 p.m. to 3 a.m., elected officials were there too, and other associations. We were a lot of adults, in Vitry we really mobilized. We went to see the young people to raise their awareness, to say that we are listening to them – even if that did not prevent them from breaking in front of us. But they knew they had adults with whom they could talk," says Lufiane N'Dongola, convinced that their intervention helped the following days to limit the damage and put an end to the violence.

➡️ #Nanterre #Nahel: Following the deterioration of roads in Vitry tonight, municipal services are actively working to clear and clean impacted lanes to improve traffic flow. pic.twitter.com/709oAmniI2

— Vitry-sur-Seine (@mairievitry) June 29, 2023

Last weekend, despite the tension and the fear of new unrest, Lufiane N'Dongola wanted to organize a speaking time on the sidelines of a concert with young people from the city. "It was essential, to defuse," he said. Through its solidarity grocery stores, its Bafa training, the association is in constant contact with the young people of the city and Lufiane N'Dongola has noticed a deterioration in relations between them and the police. "The dialogue had already broken down a long time ago, but with Nahel's death, it was as if the straw broke the camel's back. And now we have to try to catch up. We must first be with them, listen to them, talk and look for alternatives."

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Workshops in the presence of a former police officer

The behaviour of the police sometimes puts obstacles in his way. On Friday night, while Lufiane N'Dongola and others were stationed to talk to a gang of youths, police attacked adults in front of younger ones. "'Get out! Get out!', they shouted that before firing tear gas at us without knowing what we were doing. We had come to put out the fire, voluntarily, and we were insulted. But the worst part is that it discredits our work with young people."

However, the president of the association Lol'idays, which has been working for more than 25 years in the working-class neighborhoods of Grigny, in the neighboring department of Essonne, and Vitry does not give up. On the contrary, he wants to "act quickly". For this, he has planned to hold a citizen training workshop in the presence of a former police officer in the coming weeks. "We will work together on 'identity checks', how to behave, and on fear in contact with the police," he said.

"The mediators did not recognize the young people of the neighborhood"

In Clichy-sous-Bois, another popular city in the Paris suburbs, elected officials and mediators did not wait for Emmanuel Macron's recommendations to go on the ground. After posting themselves at the exit of schools on Thursday to raise awareness among adults, they went door-to-door Friday night to ask parents to keep children at home. The day before, the damage was so heavy that the town hall issued an order establishing a curfew for minors from 22 p.m. to 6 a.m.

This commune of Seine-Saint-Denis is still marked by the memory of the riots of 2005 that began here, after the death of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, 15 and 17 years old, electrocuted in an EDF transformer while fleeing a police control.

Mariam Cissé, a city councillor since 2008 and cousin of Bouna Traoré, spent part of Thursday evening with mediators in the streets of the city. They did not manage to prevent the fire of the library, she laments: "We lost our library. We met the next day to save everything we could save. The books took on water after the building was flooded by firefighters to put out the fire."

Other damage was committed in the commune, including on internet cables that deprived some of the inhabitants of the Chêne Pointu district, where families live in great precariousness, of fiber. As a result of the violence, the decision of the region (Île-de-France) to stop buses and trams after 21 p.m. prevented some from going to work due to lack of public transport. This area is almost an hour's walk from the nearest RER, and many residents, who work nights in other cities, do not have a vehicle.

"The mediators did not recognize the young people in the neighborhood," says Mariam Cissé. It is not those we usually meet who have done this damage. I think social networks have played an amplifying and excessive role."

At home, the events of the last few days revive the memory of 2005. "Naturally it brings me back to something already known and how the city and the inhabitants of Clichy-sous-Bois have tried to recover from this [negative] image." "I hope that the State will tackle the issue of working-class neighborhoods," adds the assistant to housing and sustainable habitat. "On the urban aspect we have made a lot of progress, but people's daily lives have not changed much. Filling your fridge at the end of the month is still a priority here."

"At night, a world without adults"

Yazid Kherfi remembers the 1983 riots that broke out after police violence in Les Minguettes, a suburb of Lyon. "History repeats itself," regrets the director of the association Médiation Nomade. This 62-year-old former robber is now an expert in crime prevention. With the motorhome of his association, he spends part of the night at the foot of the towers in the cities to make talk the young people who hang out. He toured more than 200 working-class neighborhoods throughout the France at the request of the municipalities. This weekend again, he went to meet young people in Mantes-la-Jolie, in the Paris region.

"At night," Yazid Kherfi describes, "I observe a world without adults. Young people are alone, parents are destitute, youth centres have closed, educators and mediators have finished their service. There are far fewer ways than before. The money is put in the security with video surveillance cameras, but we forget the prevention and the human".

" READ ALSO The man who occupies the nights of the cities

According to this expert in specialized prevention, teacher in master's degree in education science at the University of Nanterre, the young people we saw setting fire to public property and ransacking shops last week are those that sociologists call "the invisible". "They are failing at school, failing professionally, they are off the radar of institutions, school, employment ... The world has heard them in recent days. They found a way to exist through violence. These are young people who are not doing well, who have been considered 'dummies' for years. We left them between them, so they ended up having a closed speech."

For him, there is an urgent need to reconnect with these young people: "We must put resources back on the 'troublemakers'. In schools we must train more and take the time to work with 'the worst'." "What they did, I call it 'self-destruction.'"

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