The applause was brief and without enthusiasm. Friday October 27, in Chanteloup-les-Vignes (Yvelines), in front of around a hundred suburban mayors and association representatives, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, surrounded by thirteen ministers, closed the interministerial council of cities (CIV) with a speech summarizing some of the main measures announced in favor of working-class neighborhoods.
The meeting, postponed many times, had been awaited for almost a year: it is in this forum that the State unveils its action in terms of urban policy – which concerns nearly 1,500 neighborhoods and more than 5 millions of inhabitants. Mme Borne recalled: this CIV is part of the implementation of the Neighborhoods 2030 plan, presented in June by the President of the Republic in Marseille, and intended to “give neighborhood residents the means to choose their lives”.
Those on the ground were hoping for strong measures. Measurements “with breath, a vision and a change of method”, declares Ali Rabeh, mayor (Generation. s) of Trappes (Yvelines); measurements “ambitious, up to the challenges”, says Gilles Leproust, mayor (Communist Party, PCF) of Allonnes (Sarthe) and president of the Ville & Banlieue association; measurements “which show that the government is aware of the precariousness of our territories and the difficulties of the suburbs”, underlines Catherine Arenou, mayor (various right) of Chanteloup-les-Vignes. Measurements “social” also, in order to bring balance to the post-riot responses focused mainly on order and repression revealed the day before by Elisabeth Borne, in the large amphitheater of the Sorbonne, in Paris.
“A litany of scoops”
It was 12:45 p.m. when the meeting ended, after more than two hours of successive speeches by ministers (housing, education, city, etc.). The mines are closed. The big night didn’t take place. The Prime Minister leaves without a word to the press. And by failing to greet Gilles Leproust, who was waiting for him at the exit.
Eighteen years to the day after the death of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, on October 27, 2005, two teenagers were electrocuted in the confines of an electrical station in which they had taken refuge to escape a police check in Clichy -sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis) – the tragedy had triggered three weeks of riots across France – and four months after the death of Nahel M., a 17-year-old young man killed by a police officer during a road check in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine), and the eight days of urban violence that followed, the government’s action is difficult to convince.
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