“Readers’ words” – In the name of the travelers of the “bisses” of Seine-Saint-Denis

En calling the bus “bisse”, I’m not trying to make fun of anyone. It turns out that in my bus, 98% of us are foreigners, but speaking French. I have never heard the word “bus” spoken as a genuine French speaker would. There is “bass”, “bousse” and the one that I like the most: “bisse”. As my Kabyle mother-in-law used to say: “I’ve been fucking France for fifty years!” “

And more than thirty that I live in Stains in Seine-Saint-Denis, which is also in France, I specify it to my Parisian friends. ” Where ? “, they shout, as if I had announced Timbuktu. And yet, this small town-village, with its garden cities, small houses, rosebushes and garages behind white palisades, is really worth the detour. In addition to the country atmosphere, for people like me who are looking for the unusual, we have it all.

At the Stains market, we hear the Moroccan seller offering Senegalese spices to a Portuguese customer, and no one is surprised. And on weekends, when we, the immigrants, we go to visit each other, my lord undermined, all the colors of the old world pour out in the bisse: saris and boubous, scarves and tiaras. I, who was born in Brockton, not far from Boston, in Massachusetts, add the bruises to my jeans.

We are, in Stains, therefore, thirteen kilometers from Paris (5,888 from Boston), and yet last night I had the distinct impression of living in a distant Third World country. Between the metro, the RER and the bus, I took an hour and a half to get home, from the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It only takes two and a half hours to get to Lille. As they say in the neighborhoods: wesh?

I was returning from the American library, which is at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. “Describe the people to me”, asks my friend from Nice with whom I chat on the phone. I look around, I listen. “There are Italians, Spaniards, Americans, even Russians, but everyone is white”, I answer him. (Out of curiosity, I compare the price per square meter of an apartment in the 7th arrondissement on Google with the prices in Stains. The apartment in the 7th is selling for five times more!)

In front of the stop of 150 at Pierrefitte-Stains station, I am the only all white – and I imagine myself the only one from Brockton – in this mixture of various origins. We all stare at the small square that announces the next arrival of the bisse: 27 minutes. ” Oh my God ! “, I exclaim. Someone is yawning heavily. An old Malian sucks her teeth. Silence. I am often surprised by this apparent passivity. The RER D stops for twenty long minutes at Gare du Nord; nobody flinches. If, once, on the announcement of a “traveling incident”, which, for the uninitiated, often signals a suicide on the way, I heard the little lady next to me whisper: “He couldn’t do that tomorrow, right?” “

But what’s the point of getting angry? These travelers are so used to it: 20 minutes, 27 minutes or sometimes no bisses at all. “But you didn’t understand. It’s the holidays ”, explains a Parisian friend. Obviously, the guy who waits at the stop at 10 pm, with his watchdog, comes back from his work as a security guard. Holidays for whom?

So much for the delays. But once in the bisse, the real test of nerves begins! I still laugh at the circles placed on the ground at the start of the pandemic to indicate the regulatory distance. The installer must have laughed too. A meter between me and my neighbor? I would like.

By questioning a RATP driver on another night of endless waiting, I learned why we were on top of each other. “In Paris, buses only accommodate up to 99 people. In the suburbs, there is no limit ”, he told me. And when I ask him how these figures are determined, he explains to me that it is based on the number of people who validate their tickets. So, in a neighborhood like mine, where people don’t always have the price of a ticket, and therefore nothing to validate, we no longer count!

However, we have one thing in the bisses of Seine-Saint-Denis that the capital seriously lacks: collective benevolence. A blind man with his cane looking for a seat? Someone immediately gets up and escorts her. An old staggering? A young person gives way to him. Now that I have white hair, I never stand up – although sometimes I would prefer. ” Sit down there “, a young Turkish man orders me. “No, you are nice but stay seated”, I tell him. ” The ! “, He insists. I comply. Yesterday, they were two to get up at the same time. I am constantly touched by this reminder of another era and other places where each other is still cared for.

One week later, same place, same time: “Are you not leaving for 28 minutes?”, I ask the driver. But why ? “ The bus before was so crowded that I didn’t even try to get on.

“I don’t understand either, madam, he replies. It makes no sense ! “

“I write in the newspaper The world to talk about all that, I tell him. We are fed up ! “

“You are right, madame, it must be written! “

There you go, in the names of all the travelers on the Seine-Saint-Denis bisses – it’s done.

Deborah Thomas, Stains (Seine-Saint-Denis)

The world