When a police officer last week shot and killed a resident of Paris’s suburb of Nanterre, 17-year-old Nahel M., it unleashed a wave of unrest across France – an echo of similar protests launched by youth living in housing projects two decades earlier. Billions of euros of investment in the years since have done little to calm anger over police harassment and poor living conditions in France’s housing projects.
Concentrated in the suburbs (banlieues) just on the outskirts of major cities, France’s public housing projects are home to largely young populations – 40% are under 25 years of age – often from immigrant backgrounds, who face a never-ending struggle for acceptance in French society.
