A long procession rushes down rue Soubise in Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) and passes in front of large buildings of about fifteen floors.
It was in the cellar of one of these towers that Sofiane Mjaiber, 25, and Tidiane Bagayoko, 17, were shot several times in a probable settling of scores against a background of drug trafficking, on the night of 14 to September 15.
The walkers mark time.
They are nearly 350 to participate in this silent tribute, without effigy, rose, banner and without the families of the victims.
They carry a message.
Abdellatif Hedda, president of A2C3D, the organizing association spoke the day before of "waking up the spirits": those of the young traffickers who keep the points of deal in Saint-Ouen.
The march therefore took a route marked out by some of the many drug resale points.
/
"Die this way ..."
Arrived in the Arago district where lived Tidiane, high school student in Bartholdi, a group of teenagers evokes it with a smile: “He was nice funny it was not a thug, wants to believe Cerene, 14 years old.
A death, already, that shocks me, but to die in this way… ”
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“1993 became America.
It scares me, ”exclaims 17-year-old Mohamed who knew Sofiane, whose investigators suspect he was the local traffic manager, in the city of Soubise.
“Since then, I no longer go out downstairs,” he admits.
Among the anonymous people who joined the marchers, Djamal, 59, from Vieux Saint-Ouen, takes a determined step forward: “It's not the neighborhood that is bad. I raised my four children there and they didn't. never had a problem.
But it is the drug that comes from elsewhere like those who sell it.
"
Residents still in shock
They did not know the victims but he blurted out: “It was abominable.
I wouldn't want to say that we're used to it, but it's not the first time it's happened.
"
The march, without slogan, neither rose nor banner, went through the main deal points of the city to “wake up spirits”.
LP / Yann Foreix
The procession mixes the generations.
Maria, 33, mother of two, lives in the midst of trafficking.
“When I pick up my children, I do it quickly.
Sometimes there are even police raids.
She specifies, however: "I want to stay here, but I'm afraid that later the dealers will approach my children.
Are they going to fall into the trap?
», She worries.
LFI MP wants legalization
Rue Alexandre-Dumas, a man returning from work bag in hand, spots the tricolor scarf of the deputy (LFI) of the constituency, Éric Coquerel.
"I see her the 50m tail of buyers so why can't the police see her?
he protests.
Our kids are victims.
Wholesalers are not them.
"The deputy replied" that we must legalize.
What Darmanin does is tax traffic with fines ”.
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The procession slants to the left and takes the passage Elisabeth, an endless alley, where traffic is omnipresent.
Saleh, a taxi driver, returned to his old neighborhood.
He lives far from here now, but he understands what is going on at the foot of his buildings: “The business is for the
mama (the mother):
to help her pay the rent, the bills.
Parents, when they have to choose between buying a fridge and a pair of shoes, they take the fridge.
While kids, they want the pair of shoes.
And in ten days
(Editor's note: with traffic),
they can earn a minimum wage.
"
On its way, the human tide momentarily chased away the
cabbage
, the lookouts.
But when she turns into a street, they come back to lean against the wall of a building.
Where it is marked, with a stroke of blue paint, "24 hours a day.
"