It is a recurring tragedy: A young man, aged 17, lost his life, killed by a law enforcement officer after refusing to comply. Such sad news leaves us with a feeling of déjà vu. The ongoing investigation and future judicial decisions should reveal the precise circumstances of this tragedy.
Yet the issues surrounding it have already been discussed and analyzed many times: The need to reform the police force and monitor its actions, doctrine, and attitude toward young people of North African and African origin.
The inconsequential marches, the victim-oriented rhetoric on both sides, the exploiters of identitarian ideology who fan the flames, the irresponsible politicians who seek provocation instead of dignity and consensus, and above all the fact that the first victims of the riots are the residents of the neighborhoods where public services have been destroyed… How many times has this already been written, documented?
The only real question that comes to the fore once the grief over the death of a teenager has passed is: Why has no action been taken? Why, 40 years after the 1983 March for Equality and Against Racism, which condemned these “violent deaths” and their unfair treatment by prosecutors and the courts, has the country made no progress on this issue? Why has it even gone backward in some respects?
What has been done to try and build balanced relations between the poor populations of working-class suburbs and the police? Hardly anything. The delinquency prevention policy advocated in the 1980s by MP Gilbert Bonnemaison and the policy of teaching human rights in police stations advocated by former interior minister Pierre Joxe were abandoned long ago.
Faced with increasing poverty and despair in working-class neighborhoods, we have essentially developed, especially since 2005, policing techniques modeled more or less on those of the United States or the Israeli police. These techniques are sometimes effective in terms of maintaining public order. Still, they have had the effect of increasing tensions between police forces and the populations concerned and destroying any real communication between them.
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