[Since the] 1983 march for equality and against racism. “But in the 40 years since then, nothing has changed,” she said. “Teenagers of colour are still dying. Racism has got worse and is centre-stage in politics. Once, it was limited to the far right, now it has filtered into the traditional right and even the government. Poverty has been worsened by Covid, inflation and the rise in energy costs. Discrimination is rife, equal opportunities are not happening. The same clichés are still applied to people from here. There is no hope, that is the problem. People have no hope of ever escaping being stigmatised for where they live and their skin colour.”
The inequalities of the French education system are seen to underpin teenagers’ sense of segregation and abandonment. A child born and schooled in a deprived neighbourhood in France has less chance of escaping their socioeconomic background than in most other developed nations, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). France’s remains one of the most unequal school systems in the developed world.
“The key word is humiliation,” she said. “In a recent class discussion, the boys said that they felt humiliated constantly by the police, who asked for their identity papers several times a day just because they were standing outside.” With voter turnout very low on housing estates, many felt the only political party that would benefit across France would be Le Pen’s far-right movement. Laurent Jacobelli, a far-right MP for a Moselle constituency north of Metz, said this week he did not believe there was such a thing as police racism.
Borny, with a population of 17,000, above average unemployment and more than half of its residents living below the poverty line, is like of many of the neighbourhoods that have clashed with police in recent days. It lies only 3km (1.9 miles) from the vibrant centre of Metz, which boasts Michelin-rated restaurants and an outpost of the Pompidou arts centre. But many residents said that teenagers of black or of north African descent felt shut off from state services, racially profiled in police identity checks, discriminated against for jobs and in the education system, and simmering anger had been ready to erupt over racial injustice and the latest police shooting. Metz’s rightwing mayor, François Grosdidier, said the contrast between quiet areas of central Metz and neighbourhoods rising up against police was like “being in two parallel worlds”.
Angelique Chrisafis@the Guardian