Gülce Kaplan was in junior high when she first heard the story of Bouna and Zyed – or the story about how her hometown of Clichy-sous-Bois almost went up in flames.
It was springtime then, a little more than a decade ago, Ms. Kaplan recalls. She was with her best friend wandering through their neighborhood, a twisting maze of social housing blocks. A few euros in hand, they stopped by the local convenience store for snacks and drinks, chatting about life.
Her friend mentioned Bouna and Zyed, two teenage boys from town who were accidentally electrocuted in a power station after being chased by police about 10 years earlier, in 2005. Ms. Kaplan hadn’t yet heard the story that had come to define this outlying Paris suburb, or banlieue.
Why We Wrote This
In France, the relationship between nonwhite youth and police remains tense. The collective memory of a tragedy 20 years ago highlights this tension – and one town’s efforts to heal.
“She said, ‘How can you not know the story? It changed our town forever!’” Ms. Kaplan says.
It’s been 20 years since the two boys from Clichy-sous-Bois – Bouna Traoré and Zyed Benna – instinctively ran from police and then died in an accident inside that power station. It’s also been 20 years since the boys’ deaths sparked three weeks of the most violent urban riots the country had seen in decades, or in the decades since.
That anger, which bubbled over in the streets of Clichy and then across France, centered around the deaths of these two kids. But it also focused on countless other issues that had been brewing in France’s working-class suburbs for decades: racial discrimination, a lack of job opportunities, a dearth of cultural outlets, and a long-standing tension between young people and the police.
Sabrina Budon/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Ms. Kaplan was only 5 years old when Bouna and Zyed died. She doesn’t remember neighbors huddling together in the midnight streets, comforting one another.
But like everyone who lives here, Ms. Kaplan carries the weight of what happened. Growing up here means living with the town’s memory of that moment – and with the labels French society has given the young in immigrant communities: poor, troublesome, futureless.
As the 20th anniversary of the boys’ deaths approaches, younger generations of Clichois say it’s important not to forget what made their town so infamous, while not allowing it to define who they are.
At a time when ascendant far-right governments are increasingly casting those with immigrant backgrounds as the problem, Clichy’s anniversary, residents say, is also about the search for dignity.
Sabrina Budon/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
The potential bubbling in the banlieue
There has been progress. Some of the surface issues facing Clichy and other French banlieues have been addressed. Police and young people from immigrant communities often work closely together at networks of police-run youth centers, which many cherish even when times are tense. There are countless success stories of community members attending university, starting successful careers.
Assa Traoré is just one of the people working tirelessly to cultivate the enthusiasm and potential bubbling in the banlieue.
Since 2022, Ms. Traoré, who is not related to the family of Bouna Traoré from Clichy-sous-Bois, runs Generation Leaders, an initiative at the Paris campus of Columbia University. Part of her role is to help coach future leaders from diverse backgrounds, focusing on teaching the art of public speaking, types of activism, or just how to be effective advocates for themselves.
“We’re discovering a generation of young people from working-class suburbs who are full of energy and eager to fight for justice,” says Ms. Traoré.
Her brother Adama died in police custody in 2016, and, since then, she has become a central figure in France’s fight against police brutality. In 2020, she was named one of Time magazine’s “Guardians of the Year.”
“We’re trying to give young people hope and teach them: Be who you are,” she says.
Sabrina Budon/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Addressing police violence isn’t the only goal, but it often comes up. Generation Leaders shows up for families after police brutality occurs, and makes the rounds in housing projects to help stop violence before it starts.
“For many young people in the suburbs, police stops are a regular, sometimes daily occurrence,” says Danya Djida, a member of Generation Leaders and a family therapist in Paris. “We try to give residents tools so they know their rights and how to protect themselves.”
Last May, Generation Leaders held a special event in Paris to honor Franco-Rwandan author Gaël Faye, whose work tackles exile and the silence surrounding collective trauma in families and communities.
Under a billowing red tent, young stewards read from Mr. Faye’s first novel, “Small Country,” and then led discussions on French identity and the transmission of memory.
Before a crowd of about 500 people, “We all have a story,” said Ms. Traoré. “But we need to learn that even with pain from the past, we can move forward. We can heal.”
The story of Bouna and Zyed
But a sense of separateness and a lack of belonging can still drive hopelessness in immigrant communities in the banlieues.
“Our young people feel discriminated against and frustrated about feeling stuck here. It’s hard not to have a victim mentality,” says Jean-Didier Bonga, director of a youth center in Clichy. “But so many are resilient. They want to do more than their families could. They just want to go to school, get a job. We’re doing everything we can to help them get there.”
Sabrina Budon/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Still, most everyone eventually hears the story from 20 years ago.
School vacation was nearing its end when Bouna and Zyed joined a group of eight friends one Thursday afternoon in October 2005, planning to play soccer in nearby Livry-Gargan.
Around 5 p.m., the group started home toward Clichy-sous-Bois, hoping to make it home in time for iftar, or the breaking of the Ramadan fast. On their way, a local man reportedly saw the youth messing around in a construction site and called the police. Within 10 minutes, officers were on the scene.
One of the young men was arrested, and several others scattered. But Bouna, Zyed, and a third boy, Muhittin Altun, ran farther ahead. With police closing in, they scaled a 10-foot-high enclosure and then jumped behind the wall of a high-voltage electricity substation. A jolt of electricity killed Bouna and Zyed and badly burned Muhittin.
By the time evening rolled around, the news of Bouna’s and Zyed’s deaths had reached Clichy. Young people, already incensed by years of discrimination and police brutality, rose up in anger. Why had the police chased the boys into the power station instead of helping them? Didn’t they know the danger lurking behind those walls?
That evening, the suburb of 29,000 residents saw its first night of rioting. By Friday morning, 23 cars had been set afire.
“In our neighborhood, the smell of tires burning was never a good sign,” says Samir Mihi, a local physical education teacher and activist. “It’s what happens when anger rises to the surface.”
Over the next three weeks, violence erupted in the suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis and then spread to housing projects across the country, including in cities such as Nantes, Lyon, and Nice. It wasn’t the first time young people from the suburbs had experienced police brutality, but Bouna’s and Zyed’s deaths pushed residents over the edge.
Tensions had already been brewing for months. Earlier that year, France’s then-interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that the banlieues needed to be cleaned with a high-pressure water hose.
Then, two days before the boys’ deaths, Mr. Sarkozy visited the Paris suburb of Argenteuil. As residents threw balls of paper and empty cans at him, shouting insults from their apartment windows, he called up to one woman as television cameras rolled: “Have you had enough of this gang of scum? We’re going to get rid of them.”
After the accident, Mr. Sarkozy denied that police had chased the boys into the power station. That only served to upset communities, setting off another round of rioting. Frantic to find solutions, the government called in the national army to intervene, and on Nov. 8, it imposed a three-month state of emergency.
On Nov. 14, two weeks after Bouna and Zyed died, President Jacques Chirac made a televised speech to the nation, condemning the rioters. He also told young people living in difficult neighborhoods that, no matter their origins, “they [were] sons and daughters of the republic.”
But it was too late. Images of riot police facing off against hooded men had reached television screens and newspapers around the world.
France was on fire. And Clichy-sous-Bois’ image had been tarnished.
How French police and immigrant youth are building trust
For the last two decades, the community here has watched the Benna and Traoré families deal with their grief.
Soon after their son’s death, Zyed’s parents left France for their native Tunisia. But the Traorés still live in Clichy-sous-Bois, and several of Bouna’s 12 siblings are active in the community.
One of them, Moussa Traoré, is determined not to let the cycle of anger and violence continue. He was only 4 years old when Bouna died, but he has lived with his family’s grief.
“I didn’t grow up with any hatred [toward police],” Mr. Traoré said during an event last fall that brought together police and area youth. “But I have always carried the collective memory of what happened.”
For over a year, Mr. Traoré has worked as a community mediator in Clichy. He breaks up groups of young people loitering in the hallways or the garages of apartment buildings and spreads the word about the kinds of services available.
“I tell them, ‘You’re making noise. There are elderly people living here. Think about it,’” says Mr. Traoré. “I’m not trying to be the police. But since I grew up here, it’s easier to make that connection.”
Cities throughout France have experimented with such mediation efforts as a way to reduce crime. Many have also instituted other preventive measures – such as identifying at-risk youth before delinquency occurs and directing them toward social services.
In 2010, Clichy finally saw a new local police station open – something residents had been calling for ever since Mr. Sarkozy ended France’s community policing program in 2003.
French national police also operate about 30 after-school programs across the country, an initiative that dates to the early 1990s. These programs help children learn everything from arts and crafts to sports, and even how to become instructors at the center themselves one day. Part of the idea, too, is to improve the relationship between young people and the police.
Sabrina Budon/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
“At the beginning, the kids called me ‘Madame,’” says Christelle Poirson, assistant director of Clichy’s police-run Centre de Loisirs et de la Jeunesse, or leisure and youth center. These are centers throughout French communities, but Clichy’s was the first in France to be set up in the housing projects. “Now, when a kid calls me that, the others say, ‘That’s not Madame; that’s Christelle.’”
Crime rates have gone down since the police station opened in 2010. But even before that, there was evidence that the youth-center initiative was working. In 2005, when violence engulfed the town, local youth told rioters not to touch the police-run youth center. In 2023, when Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old French boy of Moroccan and Algerian descent, was shot and killed by police in nearby Nanterre, riots flared a second time. But the police youth center was once again spared.
“These kids have the feeling that this is ‘their place,’” says Pierre Wadoux, director of the youth center in Clichy-sous-Bois. “They created it. They grew up here.”
Officers know they can’t reach every child. The relationship between young people and the police in this suburb remains fragile in certain housing projects. But many former students have shown resilience, becoming bankers, engineers, and accountants.
“One former student came back and told me, ‘You gave me responsibilities; you had confidence in me. Thank you for everything you did for me,’” says Mr. Wadoux. “That moment was worth all the salary in the world.”
Energized to help each other
But progress is Rarely linear. No one knows that better than Mr. Mihi, who has spent the better part of two decades working to lift Clichy up.
After the 2005 riots, Mr. Mihi, a local sports education teacher and the Traorés’ neighbor, co-founded a collective to create more dialogue between residents and France’s civic institutions.
His organization encouraged young people from the suburbs to get out and vote. It asked leaders in more than 100 French cities to contribute a list of problems confronting young people, which was then presented to the National Assembly. Mr. Mihi also helped find ways for local residents to pay funeral costs and legal fees for Bouna’s and Zyed’s families.
Sabrina Budon/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
“The young people in this community were really energized to help one another out,” says Mr. Mihi, who ran for local office in the years following the 2005 riots. “They wanted to pay homage to the families and make sure no one forgot what happened.”
In 2015, the police officers implicated in Bouna’s and Zyed’s deaths were acquitted of failing to help those in danger. Then, in June 2023, it felt like something broke again after police shot and killed Nahel. This round of urban violence lasted eight days across France and caused €1 billion in property damage. In Clichy, young people set cars on fire, trashed shops, and burned down the local library.
“Since 2005, the relationship between youth and police has not really changed,” says Mr. Mihi. “There’s still racism and injustice in our communities. People are still angry.”
Despite concerted efforts by communities such as Clichy, banlieue has become a code word for all of France’s misery. In the media, these suburbs are often referred to as “no-go zones,” their residents “hoodlums.” By some estimates, Black and North African men in France are still stopped by police 20 times more often than their white counterparts.
France continues to struggle with integrating its 5 million-strong North African population, which began arriving en masse in the 1960s when former French colonies including Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia found independence.
By 1975, France’s small immigrant population had grown by nearly 2 million. In response, the government hastily built social housing estates on the outskirts of French cities – about 3 million units through the end of the 1970s. New arrivals were promised shops, schools, and playgrounds.
“We were convinced that simply going to school and working here would ‘make people French,’” says Emmanuel Bellanger, a social historian and expert on French suburbs at the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. “That was the French integration model back then.”
But large numbers of second- and third-generation North Africans have had trouble getting out of the banlieues. Suburbs such as Clichy are far from Paris’ city center, and young people continue to experience discrimination during job interviews and house hunting.
“Clichy-sous-Bois is like so many other working-class suburbs in that it started as this place that promised territorial cohesion,” says Naïma Huber-Yahi, a historian and expert in North African immigration. “But then, problems of urban planning started to creep in; there was increasing poverty, police violence. Immigrants were accused of all that was going wrong.
“The suburbs have so many things to offer,” she continues. “But they are continually stigmatized and stereotyped, their residents turned into caricatures.”
Helping residents live with dignity
In a cozy auditorium in the Ateliers Médicis cultural center in the northern part of town, a microphone crackles as Ms. Kaplan’s voice rings out, softly at first, then growing in confidence. She’s introducing three local activists to talk about the stigma of growing up in the banlieue.
Ms. Kaplan now works as a journalist at L’Étincelle Média, a community radio program within the Ateliers Médicis whose aim is to give young people from Clichy a voice.
Young journalists at L’Étincelle lead podcast discussions with local leaders and report on issues that matter to them – such as the renovation of social housing blocks, issues immigrants face, and instances of police brutality.
But the radio station and other cultural centers have had trouble recruiting local youths. Momar Seck, Clichy-sous-Bois’ employment and inclusion officer, says many residents limit themselves. Young people agree.
“Many young people look around and say, ‘Well, I guess this is it for me,’” says Ely Ciré, a 24-year-old Clichois and one of the exceptions: He graduated from the prestigious Sciences Po, a university in Paris, with a degree in urban planning.
Sabrina Budon/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Clichy is doing its best to create more success stories, especially because half its population is under the age of 30. There is an abundance of youth centers and activities that serve its multicultural community, rich with more than 100 nationalities.
Mayor Olivier Klein, who grew up here, has helped residents live with dignity, focusing on renovating run-down housing estates like the Chêne Pointu – the epicenter of the 2005 riots. A tramway now helps residents get to Paris more quickly, and the town boasts some of the most green spaces in the region. The Parc départemental de la Fosse-Maussoin was significantly enlarged between 2011 and 2022, creating new wooded areas, a meadow for picnicking, and a fitness trail.
Still, much of the town is made up of social housing blocks, where families of as many as 10 individuals live in spaces of about 1,000 square feet or less. There is no town center. Clichy has one of the highest poverty rates in France at 42%, and 4 out of 10 people under age 25 are unemployed. Given its reputation, Mayor Klein has had trouble getting businesses to invest here.
Ms. Kaplan says that, on the one hand, she’s “so obsessed” with her hometown that she wrote her master’s thesis about it. On the other hand, she can’t understand why people stay.
“I asked my uncle, who’s married with kids and a good job, ‘Don’t you want to leave?’” says Ms. Kaplan. “He just says, ‘No, this place is my family.’”
Part of her role at L’Étincelle is to provide a platform for young people to piece together their thoughts about their town and gain agency over Clichy’s future – as well as their own.
“Young people here see that the words used to describe them for the last 20 years don’t correspond to reality,” says Ulysse Mathieu, coordinator for L’Étincelle. “It obviously creates distrust and anger.”
The radio station is planning an October tribute to Bouna and Zyed, as well as a news report on the changes Clichy-sous-Bois has gone through since the 2005 riots.
On the wall behind her desk, Ms. Kaplan has a vision board covered in photos and sayings about her Turkish origins. At the top is a black-and-white photo of Bouna and Zyed with the words, “We won’t forgive, we won’t forget.”
“Once, I went on a reporting trip outside Paris and someone said, ‘Oh, you’re from Clichy-sous-Bois? That’s the ghetto; how can you live there?’” says Ms. Kaplan. “I wish people could understand the reality of living here, and all of this energy.”
“The buildings are growing like trees”
These days, the hum of cranes and electric drills has become the background music of everyday life in Clichy-sous-Bois. New apartment complexes, playgrounds, and roads are rising at a breakneck pace.
Sabrina Budon/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
In 2027, a new Metro line will stop here, allowing people to reach central Paris in 30 minutes. The community is also in the midst of tearing down the Chêne Pointu projects, with plans to replace them with new apartments and green spaces by 2030.
All of the changes have created mixed feelings among residents, who want Clichy to improve but not lose its identity. “My mom says, ‘I don’t even recognize my town anymore; the buildings are growing like trees,’” says Ms. Kaplan.
But building up the beleaguered town and giving residents the services they need to live with dignity is a first start in addressing the challenges of living here, observers say. It also means Bouna’s and Zyed’s deaths have not been in vain – even if, in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, their story is impossible to forget.
Every October, the town’s city hall hosts a commemoration service next to the local junior high, where a marble plaque stands alongside a street named in the boys’ honor. Two of the Traoré brothers organize an annual youth soccer match in their memory.
While the story of Bouna and Zyed has at times filled Clichy with darkness, residents say, memories of the boys have also filled it with light.
“Sometimes, it feels like torture to live here,” says Ms. Kaplan. “But every time I leave, I feel like I’m in the jungle. And I’m always relieved to come back.”
