One week ago this morning, a mother in the French town of Nanterre was getting ready for work. Before she left, her 17-year-old son Nahel gave her a big kiss and told her, "I love you, Mum".

Hours later, he was dead, shot point-blank by a police officer during a traffic stop.

As the details came out, France exploded. For almost a week, riots raged in major cities, targeting police stations and town halls.

The riots have come from the disadvantaged suburbs known as the "banlieues". These areas are largely inhabited by ethnic minorities, and they are very deprived: in Aubervilliers, north of Paris, 24% of people are unemployed, and some 42% of the population lives in poverty.¹ This has been linked with racist discrimination by employers and the state.

Some people in the banlieues feel that they are not considered really French. And this disillusionment sometimes boils over.

But others say it is not enough to blame it all on government neglect of the banlieues. They say it has been trying to improve life in the banlieues.

Racism is becoming less and less tolerated. Billions of eurosThe currency of the eurozone, an economic region made up of European Union member countries who have decided to use the same currency. The euro was first used in 1999. are being spent to improve transport connections to deprived areas and put up new buildings there to drive down unemployment.

And the people of the banlieues are not all behind the rioters. Nahel's family have pleaded with them to stop, saying they want only peaceful protests.

Some argue that the real problem is the police. French protesters have always had a vexed relationship with the police, but in the banlieues, the feeling is much more visceral.

Even the language is different. Among the old (mostly white) French Left, police are derisivelyShowing ridicule or a lack of respect. called the "flics". In the banlieues they are referred to, with much more fear and loathing, as the "schmitts", German for "blacksmiths", because of their readiness to hand out beatings.

The police are known to target Black and Arab young men, who are stopped 20 times more often than the rest of the population.

The wound runs deep. In 1961, AlgeriansPeople from Algeria, a country in North Africa on the Mediterranean coast. in Paris were put under curfew because of the ongoing War of Algerian IndependenceAlso known as the Algerian Revolution. A major conflict from 1954 to 1962 which led to Algeria winning its independence from France. . When they came out in peaceful protest, the police repressed them savagely. 

As many as 200 protesters were murdered, some later washing up in the river SeineFrance's third-longest river, extending 485 miles from Dijon to the English Channel. It is also a type of fishing net. . A famous piece of graffiti on the riverside summed up this bitter time: "Here we drown Algerians". Some historians say it is little wonder that when people from minority groups are killed by police, the banlieues tend to explode.

This has led many to call for police reform. But the French police have a lot of political power. 

In 2020, then-Interior Minister Christophe Castaner announced that police would no longer be allowed to use a kind of chokehold that had recently caused the death of Cedric Chouviat, a man of North African heritage. French police unionsA trade union is an association of workers which can fight for the rights of workers and defend them against unfair working conditions. staged protests all over France and Castaner lost his job. 

Already the police are putting pressure on the government over the killing of Nahel. Reform seems a remote possibility.

Yes: The people of the banlieues have been treated like second-class citizens for too long. They have been disowned by their own country. No wonder a tragic killing like this sparks a riot.

No: Politicians are doing their best to improve conditions in the banlieues. Bit by bit, things are improving. This is just people taking advantage of the chaos to break things.

Or... It is true that politicians are trying to improve the economic situation in the banlieues. But as long as they will not confront the police, the biggest problem will go unsolved, and the banlieues will remain a powder kegA barrel of gunpowder. Often used to describe a situation which could become very dangerous. .