From Nanterre with love... and rage

 

Excellent reporting from the Guardian here in Nanterre:

The death of the teenager, who neighbours said was from a family of Algerian origin, triggered a night of rioting and clashes with police on housing estates in several towns outside Paris.

“It’s always the same people, the same ethnicities – that’s what’s bringing everyone out to protest and that’s why the whole world is talking about this,” said Linda, 40, who had dropped her three-year-old daughter at school on Tuesday before witnessing the aftermath of the police shooting, metres from her child’s school.

“If you are slightly of colour, or from an immigrant background, you’ll be judged differently. There are two different justice systems, that is what is not working.” Linda, who is of a mixed race background with an Algerian father, said: “People are very angry and very afraid.”

This quoted lady, Linda, also compares the events to 2005. 

She compared the mood to the urban riots of 2005 when the deaths of two young boys hiding from police in an electricity substation in Clichy-sous-Bois, north of Paris, triggered weeks of unrest on estates across the country. She said: “It’s like 2005, the same type of thing.”

She's right. 

Let's add that the most important Muslim holiday also just started... 

These families was getting ready to celebrate. Instead they fear both the police and potential destructive riots. 

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I've been doing so much of what I'm doing because of these events. Our public international news channel, France 24, was launched in the aftermath, to bring better coverage of France abroad... 

I live nearby, passed my school exams in Nanterre 25 years ago, am from the same origins as Nael, and couldn't be sadder that nothing improved with French police in all this time...

As journalists, we have a responsibility to help people understand. The last thing we need now here in Nanterre, Colombes, Clichy-sous-Bois... is more police.