Stéphane Diboundje displays a resigned smile: here he is, once again, immersed in ” riots “. This summer, the Picard lawyer, 48, defends Hakim Fechtala, father of three children. The food truck of this man with a dry body went up in smoke on the night of June 28 to 29, the day after the death of Nahel M. As elsewhere, Amiens-Nord, where the hottest and most impoverished districts of the city are located, rose up. The town hall of the sector, the cash machines, the cellar of a building: the flames spared nothing. A school could have burned down if parents had not intervened. It is also thanks to its customers that a café escaped being scrapped in extremis.
The administrative quagmire is driving Hakim Fechtala, who has always lived in Amiens-Nord, mad. The insurance companies ask him for proof. But the food truck papers were in the glove box. Young people offered to deliver the culprits to him. ” And after ? », he lets go. Neighbors have opened an online fundraiser – “Poor people give donations, it makes me cry. » Hakim Fechtala sneers, hands on his large satchel: “Parents are lost here. The State tells them that they can no longer educate their children. But what do we give them as a solution in exchange? Apart from cornering us, what are they doing up there? » He is reluctant to move the carcass of his charred truck. His way of expressing his spite.
In his office, Stéphane Diboundje, size of colossus, speaks with his portrait in the background. This photo, dated August 17, 2012, has traveled far: “I even saw my face in Chinese media. » He appears there with his straight bust, microphones stretched towards his mouth like bayonets. That day, this young Picard lawyer had not planned to work. ” I had volleyball. » His phone rings. An immediate appearance. He puts on his dress. A few days earlier, a young man was killed on a motorcycle while fleeing a traffic check. The city is stretching. Then residents accuse the police and their tear gas of having disrupted a tribute to the deceased. It was enough: this corner of Amiens is a stick of dynamite with a short fuse.
This is the first crisis of François Hollande’s five-year term, in the middle of summer. The night of August 13 to 14 was exceptionally violent: a hundred young people of all ages clashed with a hundred police officers. Images of slums and fires go around the world. Stories of human misery, between trafficking, single and broke mothers and out-of-school kids paint a dented portrait of Amiens, 135,000 inhabitants. Manuel Valls, then Minister of the Interior, goes there. The pressure is maximum: the police have been targeted with live ammunition. At the courthouse, Stéphane Diboundje remembers the shift: feverish journalists in search of big bosses and his clients accused, among other things, of a trash fire. Christopher, one of them, confesses that he cannot read or write. He is 20 years old.
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