The parallel is in all mouths: since Tuesday evening, the riots that ignite every night several cities of France are judged in the light of those of 2005. The 17-year-old was killed in Nanterre on Tuesday, June 27 by a police officer, after refusing to comply during a road check. The violence of 2005 is undoubtedly the most violent that the France has ever known. But the phenomenon comes from further afield. The first riots set the Lyon suburbs ablaze (Vaulx-en-Velin, Villeurbanne, Vénissieux) from the 70s and 80s. It is also the death of a young man from the city of Minguettes in Vénissieux, during clashes with the police, which was at the origin of the "march of the Beurs". From the 90s, uprisings occur at regular intervals in the suburbs of large cities, all over France.
The duration of these riots varies. They do not systematically extend to the whole territory. It is impossible for the moment to know whether the riots of the last two nights will be as violent and long as in 2005. It should be noted, however, that after starting around Nanterre, they have already spread to many districts of several cities in France.
The riots of 2005, the France to fire and blood
On 27 October 2005, three teenagers pursued by the police took refuge in an EDF site and entered the compound of a transformer. An electric arc of 20,000 volts kills Bouna Traoré, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17. Muhittin, the third, also 17 years old, was badly burned but managed to escape. The same evening, riots broke out in Clichy Sous-Bois. For three weeks, young people burned cars and assaulted firefighters and police. The insurgency spread to the surrounding cities, then to the major cities of France in early November, after a tear gas canister ricocheted off and landed in a mosque, angering the Muslim community. On November 8, after twelve nights of rioting, the Villepin government decreed a state of emergency - the Prime Minister spoke only of a "curfew". This is the fifth time that a state of emergency has been declared since 1955 during the Algerian war. The return to calm will not be noted until 17 November.
" READ ALSO "Riots: the powder keg of our lost territories"
Balance sheet? More than 10,000 vehicles burned, 300 buildings destroyed or degraded, 6000 arrests and 1300 people imprisoned. Two of the police officers are on trial in Rennes from 16 March 2015. The former is accused of not having intervened even though he knew the danger to the children. The second official present in the command room is accused of not having taken the initiative to warn EDF to avoid the tragedy. On 18 May, the court acquitted the two policemen.
2005 riots
Go to slideshow (14)
Riots in the Val d'Oise in 2007, police officers targeted by gunfire
On November 25, 2007, around 17:00 p.m., a police car collided with two teenagers perched without helmets on an unapproved motocross in Villiers-le-Bel (Val d'Oise). The two young boys, Moushin Sehhouli and Laramy Samoura, fifteen and sixteen years old, do not survive the violence of the shock. Attacked in the middle of a hostile gathering, the police hurriedly left the scene. Commissioner Illy, having gone to the scene with the emergency services in a spirit of appeasement, narrowly escaped lynching.
This is the beginning of fifteen days of riots that will remain confined to Villiers-le-Bel and some surrounding municipalities such as Sarcelles or Garges-lès-Gonesse. They give rise to real scenes of urban guerrilla warfare, small armed and organized groups attacking police with incendiary projectiles or firearms. In addition to this violence, there are numerous arson attacks and scenes of looting, with thugs also attacking shopkeepers, passers-by, motorists, elected officials, or journalists. A total of 25 police officers were wounded, five of them seriously, targeted by buckshot and even larger-calibre ammunition. No retaliatory fire was carried out on the side of the police.
" READ ALSO Christophe Guilluy : "The suburbs are not ghettos, they are airlocks"
In July 2009, ten thugs accused of violence were sentenced to sentences ranging from twelve months suspended to three years in prison. Three rioters convicted of shooting police officers were sentenced to three to fifteen years' imprisonment. On 13 September 2013, the police officer driving the car that hit the motorcycles was sentenced on appeal to a six-month suspended prison sentence for manslaughter due to lack of caution.
2007 riots
Go to slideshow (4)
July 2009, three nights of chaos in the suburbs of Saint-Etienne
On 7 July 2009, Mohamed Benmouna, a 21-year-old boy known to the police, hanged himself at the Chambon-Feugerolles police station using a makeshift strap torn from the covering of his mattress. Although the autopsy reveals "no trace of violence", according to the prosecutor's office at the time, the rumor of a blunder ignites the powder. Three nights of riots followed in the neighborhoods of Firminy, a suburb of Saint-Étienne. The rioters clashed with the riot police and stoned police cars. Cars are set on fire. The small mall goes up in flames, after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a nearby hair salon.
Riots 2009
Go to slideshow (3)
A year later, the suburbs of Grenoble go up in flames
On July 16, 2010, two men robbed the Casino of Uriage-les-Bains, in Isère, near Grenoble. Pursued, the robbers armed with an assault rifle and a submachine gun fired at a police car in Grenoble, slightly wounding a civil servant. Karim Boudouda, one of the 27-year-old robbers - already sentenced three times to the assizes for armed robbery - is then shot dead by the police. The following night, riots broke out, particularly in the Villeneuve district, near Grenoble. The security forces are targeted by live ammunition. Businesses and vehicles are set on fire. Thugs loot and destroy bus shelters with baseball bats. A strong police force, composed of more than 300 men is deployed to crisscross the neighborhood, to deter violent groups.
Riots 2010
Go to slideshow (3)
February 2017, the Théo affair ignites the neighborhoods
On February 2, 2017, Théo Luhaka was stopped with a group of young people by the police in Aulnay-sous-Bois. Control degenerates. Theo struggles and refuses to be handcuffed. He receives a baton blow on the rectal area, which tears his sphincter. The police deny the intentional nature of the violence, and say they had to subdue the young man. Three police officers involved are due to be tried before an assize court in 2024. Initially considered, the rape charges were eventually dropped.
" READ ALSO "From the lost territories of the Republic to the territories won by the Islamists?"
The following days, riots broke out, especially in Seine-Saint-Denis and in the cities of Marseille, Rouen, Villeurbanne, Chambéry, or Rodez. A demonstration organized in Bobigny degenerates. Several shops are vandalized. The bus station is almost razed. A few days later, police stations were attacked in the Paris region.
Riots Theo case
Go to slideshow (3)
Summer 2018, the districts of Nantes go up in flames
On July 3, 2018, Aboubacar Fofana, 22, was killed by a CRS during a control that degenerated, while he was driving his car in the city of Beil, near Nantes. The young man was wanted on an arrest warrant for "robbery in an organized gang, concealment and criminal association". The police officer, who initially pleads self-defense, changes his version and then speaks of an "accidental shooting".
See alsoNew bursts of violence "anti-cops"
The death of the young man leads to five days of violence in the suburbs of Nantes. Molotov cocktails are thrown at the police. Shops were looted and cars set on fire - including the personal vehicle of the Mayor of Nantes, Johanna Rolland (PS). Last April, the police officer was referred to the criminal court for "fatal blows". But the characterization is disputed by the family's lawyers who appeal and ask that he be tried for murder.
Riots 2018
Go to slideshow (3)
Rioting, a local sport in Gabelle
Most of the time, it is the death of a young person that is at the origin of the riots in the suburbs. But in the city of Gabelle in Fréjus, known to be gangrenous by drug trafficking, three nights of riots broke out in March 2021 for no apparent reason. At the end of the first two nights, a few dozen young people lured the police into an ambush by setting fire to garbage cans.
Rebelote in November: thugs set fire to an excavator, a CCTV mast, a car and a building under construction to provoke the police. Once the police arrived, they came under mortar fire and Molotov cocktails. A police officer was seriously injured in the eye.
A year later, in December 2022, the excesses following Morocco's victories during the football World Cup in Qatar pushed the mayor of Fréjus, David Rachline (RN), to suspend all public subsidies granted to these districts.