Facing the suffering of residents who feel abandoned by the French Republic, a call for a contingency plan for peri-urban areas grew louder. The concern referenced by around thirty mayors of major cities and neighboring towns appeared in Le Monde at the end of May. This warning forecast a social epidemic that, one month later, seemed to threaten President Emmanuel Macron with a powerful challenge: anger, urban unrest, and protests highlighting police abuses affecting youths from these peripheral towns. A state visit to Germany then hovered in doubt as a political crisis intensified.
Ali Rabeh, mayor of Trappes in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, described the week’s events as an exploding time-bomb test. The metaphor underscored a pattern of neglect over the past decade and a half, in which metropolitan suburbs endured economic and social marginalization. Officials hoped to keep this time bomb from rupturing the surface, as if the problem could be set aside without consequence.
Nahel M., a 17-year-old, was fatally shot by a police officer while seated in his car on a Tuesday morning. The officer faced charges of voluntary manslaughter and remained in preventive detention. The funeral of the teenager, held in Nanterre, drew a crowd and reflected the shock felt in the suburb northwest of Paris near La Défense, a major financial district.
The deja vu of police harassment in Bandiliue
Many youths from these neighborhoods saw themselves in Nahel’s fate, fueling anger that sparked riots and vandalism across towns. Security forces detained up to 1,311 people overnight. This marked the fourth round of urban violence, with hundreds of cars burned, police stations and town halls set alight, and numerous shops looted. A recent Ifop study indicates that 69% of French respondents support the declaration of a state of emergency, underscoring the political dimension of the crisis.
There is a dual grief for residents: a sense of being treated worse than others due to a higher proportion of foreign-born inhabitants and struggles with housing, transport, and police interactions. Sociologist Julien Talpin notes that authorities often dismissed the underlying problems while the police violence issue remained unaddressed. He emphasizes that the case of Nahel has a particular resonance because it fits a long history of youths from these areas facing police violence.
Historically, France has seen similar waves of unrest after police-related deaths in the suburbs, with the 2005 riots serving as a well-known example that began after Zyed and Bouna died while trying to escape police contact. Recent years have seen fewer disturbances than 2005 or the more recent events, yet episodes have persisted, including the Theo incident in 2017, a 2020 disturbance in Villeneuve-la-Garenne, and the controversial arrest of music producer Michel Zecler later that year.
Talpin recalls a shift in 2017 when a reform on firearm use marked a turning point. Since then, the number of police-involved fatalities rose from eight to twenty-six, with roughly half of those killed while attempting to evade police in vehicles. He adds that racial minorities are overrepresented among the deceased.
Macron’s approach and the suburbs’ depth
The core problem in the suburbs extends beyond economic inequality or verbal abuse from authorities. Éric Fassin, a sociologist studying these zones, highlights unemployment rates about 2.7 times the national average and the influence of rising inflation. He points out that the government’s response has often been inadequate, a sentiment echoed by interior minister Gérald Darmanin, who has publicly questioned the framing of police violence.
After the George Floyd protests in the United States, France saw strong demonstrations against racism and police harassment in the northern regions. Advocates called for reforms to build trust between police and citizens, but critics say practical actions were limited and slow to materialize. Macron’s presidency has faced accusations of insufficient attention to these neighborhoods, with some policies failing to translate into meaningful change.
There have been some measures, such as reducing classroom sizes in suburban institutes, but these efforts waned over time. A bold plan announced in 2018 to overhaul life in the suburbs was abandoned, leaving residents feeling unheard. The marginalization of these neighborhoods continued to echo past protests, including the Yellow Vest movement, which underscored political tensions between rural areas and urban peripheries, reinforcing the sense of a ticking time bomb in the suburbs.