Youth in the banlieue: is the neighborhood the meeting point for ethnic minorities?

23In response to the opening question, “Can you talk to me about life in Grenoble generally?” youth belonging to the minorities from La Villeneuve reacted, significantly, by speaking not about Grenoble, but about their neighborhood: they considered that in La Villeneuve, “there are all kinds”, “we are all mixed up”. This immediate attachment to a “we” (“we are all”) shows, at the outset, the strength of the identity “inhabitants of La Villeneuve”. Diversity (“there are all kinds”) is right away included in a “we”, a collective identity. Throughout the discussion, the participants constantly mentioned this same “we”, a marker of a feeling of shared belonging. Later, however, one participant, Walid, indicated that there nonetheless existed in the neighborhood an “Arab” (North African) community and a Black community: they might enter into conflict if there was “some trouble” (dispute) between an “Arab” and a Black, each person benefiting from community solidarity. Here, we see the idea of ethnic divisions within the banlieues. Clément confirmed that in the case of “trouble”, he might benefit from solidarity “as an Arab”. But Yassin put these claims into perspective: collective conflicts mainly oppose interethnic “gangs” from different neighborhoods. This statement, which reaffirms the primacy of the neighborhood identity, was collectively agreed to during the discussion: for young people, ethnic divisions seemed easily overcome in favor of territorial identifications.

24Thus, possible conflicts between “Blacks” or “Arabs”, which were not immediately spoken of and only came up later in the discussion, were mentioned only as one-time possibilities. In addition, participants made no mention of “we the Blacks” or “we the Arabs”. There were, however, several occurrences of a collective subject, that is, a common grouping bringing together these two groups. Thus, for example, Walid said that “the Blacks and the Arabs have to fight more than others to find work”.

25Later in the discussion, in response to the direct question by the moderator, “How do you define yourselves?”, Nejib responded that they lived as “inhabitants of the neighborhood”. The other participants agreed (“There you go!”), except for Yassin who said nothing, then affirmed: “We don’t define ourselves in relation to our neighborhood… [pause] The definition of ourselves… It’s more than that.” But Yassin, who said nothing more about it, did not offer a competing identification to the neighborhood. His comment seems to us to express not a questioning of the collective “neighborhood” identity, but rather some reticence at defining himself only (“the definition of ourselves”) according to territory. But the subject of his sentence, “we don’t define ourselves”, paradoxically reaffirms the relevance of the neighborhood as a marker of collective identification. At another point, a member of the group was talking about the “riffraffers” [“racailleux”] – a derivative of “riffraff” [“racaille”] – who were being distinguished from other young people in the neighborhood. However, the existence of “riffraff” was not brought up spontaneously, but after viewing a short video, [45] in order to qualify a film character. While those being surveyed were very ready to answer the moderator’s questions, they were not particularly motivated by the subject of “riffraff”. In the end, the discussion did not reveal any challenge or real competition to the “members of the neighborhood” collective identity, which seemed to transcend more specific belongings.

26The identification of these young people with the “neighborhood” is even more striking since they absolutely did not see themselves remaining in La Villeneuve in the future: the idea that they might be living there in the future seemed so absurd that, when the moderator mentioned it, they reacted with laughter. They strongly affirmed their desire to “succeed” through their studies, a project they believed they were in the process of achieving and which would lead them to leave La Villeneuve. More than others then, they had the means as well as reasons to distance themselves from the neighborhood. The fact that they nonetheless identified with it in a territorial mode demonstrates the strength of the reference to the neighborhood among youth in housing estates – much more than those that live in “the street” or belong to gangs.

Adults: the absent neighbourhood

27In response to the opening question on “life in Grenoble”, contrary to the youth, the adults did not use “we” to reflect a feeling of common belonging. They reacted by mentioning, variously, the city as a whole, the neighborhood of La Villeneuve, or “deprived neighborhoods” in general, in Grenoble or France.

28And the discussion never remained limited for very long to the neighborhood of La Villeneuve. In this regard, after La Villeneuve was brought up, Ema mentioned “contacts and enriching activities in Grenoble”, and thought that “Grenoble has evolved”. Sidoine, for his part, referred repeatedly to “deprived neighborhoods”. He recalled that the problems found in La Villeneuve were not unique to this neighborhood, but were part of a larger context: “If they [the politicians] were to put projects, for ZEP [Priority education zone] and ZUS [Sensitive urban zone], in the neighborhoods of the city, because La Villeneuve is not the only one…” And when the researcher asked whether there were problems specific to the La Villeneuve neighborhood, he answered: “In all of France, in all the sensitive neighborhoods there is a lot of unemployment […], an above-average level of problems in those areas.” Even though he ends up mentioning La Villeneuve, it is to include it in all of Grenoble’s deprived neighborhoods: “Especially La Villeneuve, Mistral, Teisseire.”

29These statements reveal three modes of distinction between “us/them” that transcend or fragment the neighborhood entity. First, participants spoke of the responsibility (concerning the problems of the “neighborhoods”) of “the politicians who could no doubt do more” (Noel). The other participants took up this statement, but did not contrast “the politicians” with the members of the neighborhood. They distinguished them more globally from the people in general: “They don’t listen to the population” (Sidoine), “we the population” (Ema). And when the moderator asked, “By ‘we the population’, do you mean the people from the neighborhood or from the entire city?”, Ema clearly specified that, “No, it’s everyone.” Up to this point, we saw no sign of identification with La Villeneuve. Thus, when the moderator asked if there were “more neglected areas”, Ema simply answered, “Yes, areas called ‘sensitive’.”

30Furthermore, generational differences within the neighborhood seem to be formative. When the moderator asked what were “the negative points of La Villeneuve”, Ema mentioned crime, which he immediately associated with “the youth” of the neighborhood: “It’s due to a certain idleness among the youth.” The generational specificity concerning crime was highlighted. Ema affirmed, “I don’t excuse young people or anyone who sets fires […] [46]. That is very bothersome […]. For me, the most bothersome [is] when the population is held hostage either by the politicians, or by the oppressed class.” Shortly after, when the participants returned to the problems in La Villeneuve, Ema spoke very explicitly of “a generational conflict as well. There are several generations. Very often the connection is not made. For us, our associative role is to form a bridge.” No one in the group argued with this point, and Noel asked, “Isn’t it because, in the end, there is no more communication between the generations?” In relation to the question of crime in La Villeneuve, the participants therefore spoke of a group of common belonging, the adult population of the neighborhood, in contrast to the youth. But this group was not subject to any affective or identity investment: during the discussion, it never provoked the mentioning of a “we” that would reflect attachment.

31In addition, the adult members confirmed the existence of ethnic divisions within the neighborhood. According to Noel, La Villeneuve is a place that is “multicultural but not intercultural. There are no interactions between people. Each group has its set place depending on its origin.” In response to the moderator’s question, “Why isn’t it intercultural?”, Ema agreed and confirmed, “Today if I meet Sidoine, I don’t dare say hello”, implying that Blacks, like himself, and North Africans, like Sidoine, tend to avoid each other. Noel confirmed this and lamented “that a barrier is developing. Distance has been created, people no longer communicate.” To this Sidoine added, “Intercultural exchange is rare.” Finally, the participants mostly spoke of the neighborhood negatively: “La Villeneuve is not the calmest part of the city. In La Villeneuve it is less safe, there is noise from the motorcycles... A gym was burned” (Noel). All the participants spoke of “the less safe aspect” (Ema) of the La Villeneuve neighborhood, or the fact that “now people do what they want, how they want” (Sidoine).

32In total opposition with the youth group, the adults thus depicted a neighborhood divided by ethnic and generational tensions, and affected by anomie and crime. And the divisions that ran through the neighborhood did not constitute groups of belonging: while the youth were contrasted with the adults, there was no “we, adult members of the neighborhood” that appeared. The neighborhood was always held at a distance, with the participants positioning themselves as observer, as if external to the place in which they live, speaking, for example, of “the existence of tensions” just as a sociologist might, without showing that they were personally involved.

33At first view, these results seem to refute the hypothesis of an ethno-territorial mode of identification in suburban housing estates, among both adults and youth. But is identification with the neighborhood really excluded? It remains to be seen if the relationship with the police, as it is taken up during the discussions, can make a difference.

Youth: the police as enemy of the neighbourhood

35When the moderator introduced the theme of the police – “If I say to you, ‘Police’, what comes to mind?” – Walle spontaneously responded “neighborhoods”: “Me, I think ‘neighbourhoods’ directly.” “Which means?”, continued the moderator – “The police and the neighborhoods, it’s the same old song.” Throughout the discussion, the police were exclusively viewed in relation to “the neighborhoods” and their inhabitants. And the statements made were immediately critical: “In the neighborhoods, the police are looking for shit for nothing. People are doing nothing wrong in the neighborhoods.” These words began to clarify the way in which the police are seen in relation with the territory. Thus, Walle did not mention, as he did at the beginning of the discussion, “the neighborhood”, that is La Villeneuve. He only said, “Neighborhood(s)”, that is, probably “the neighborhoods”, plural, or “neighborhood” as a generic term to refer to all of them. What followed confirmed that Walle was not just speaking about La Villeneuve, but about all banlieues: “In the neighborhoods, the police.” The discussion then took up the subject of “the police” in its relationship with “neighborhoods” in general, as seen in the following extracts, where the young people illustrated what they were talking about by referring to Argenteuil [French city near Paris]. And even though the participants referred constantly to “the neighborhoods”, they did not often mention police officers, but rather “the police”.

36The police were thus viewed in a “police-neighborhoods” dialectic, where it is less a matter of individuals being at issue – police officers, inhabitants – than collective entities. And what brings these two groups together – police, neighborhoods – is a conflict situation in which the police are referred to implicitly, but unambiguously, as the source of the problems. Thus, at the outset Walle confirms: “In the neighborhoods, the police are looking for shit for nothing.” Here, the police organization is not presented nor criticized in its policing role, even though it is viewed critically, nor is it denounced as being repressive, violent, or unfair: it is viewed primarily as provocative. The idea that it “is looking for shit” seems to refer to a latent conflict that it is trying to stir up, seeking, it seems, a confrontation that it cannot provoke too directly.

37The other members of the group confirm this image of the police as provocative. Thus, Nejib thinks that “sometimes, the police arrive in the neighborhoods and tense up, they get annoyed and launch insults”. Reda, for his part, explained that lately, police officers have begun patrolling in La Villeneuve, even though “there is nothing happening in the neighborhood”. It was the willingness to provoke that, here again, was given as a motive for police behavior: “They know that we take that as a provocation. They know it very well. Why do they walk around La Villeneuve, with their pistols, in front of the youth?” The symbol of the police officer’s function, the weapon, is perceived as one of animosity. The assertion is clear: the police have no place in the neighborhood. If they go there, it is out of a desire to provoke the inhabitants, to stir up a conflict. Here, the neighborhood is seen as a territory or place: not as a simple space, but in connection to the group that occupies it, which defines itself through the territory to which it belongs. The police force is thus not criticized as a state institution failing in its duties, or for the fact that police officers are apparently committing abuses individually: it is, in any case – the premise is never discussed – an enemy, criticized for stoking a conflict, concerning which it knows the rules. Compared to the beginning of the discussion, the theme of the police creates a shift: it is perceived through its identification with the banlieues in general, rather than the specific neighborhood of La Villeneuve. Participants point to many behaviors, police provocations and the expression (only once) of ethnic prejudice, but they are always subsumed by a more global relationship with the police. Under the pretext of its official function, it is working to undermine in the housing estates: it is patrolling even though “there is nothing going on” or “people are doing nothing wrong”. In all cases, we note that the participants are referring to a grouping or identity that is defined based on the territory.

The adults: the police prompt a social identity

38To the extent that the adult participants contrast the young generation with the rest of the population in connection with crime and do not seem necessarily to identify themselves in relation to the neighborhood, we wonder if they perceive the police through the lens of a territorial identity, or whether speaking of the police would instead refocus their attention on the issue of youth crime.

39After the moderator directed the debate to the theme of the police, the participants no longer distanced themselves from the neighbourhood, nor did they talk in generalities (by speaking of a larger context or of politics, for example). On the contrary, throughout the discussion, the participants spoke primarily of police action within La Villeneuve. Sidoine said that officers, “when they ask questions, they are aggressive”, and Noel related an experience where police officers questioned him by mistake, taking him for someone else, before a witness came to help him. Far from expressing some solidarity with the police force against young offenders, the adults spoke of its failures.

40The statements appeared to be exclusively critical, emphasizing first, officers’ misconduct, their aggressive way of speaking to people: “It is especially the way they come to question people. When they ask questions, they are aggressive. When they approach you, you have the impression of being considered as the one who’s guilty”, said Noel. Sidoine summarized the general feeling of the inhabitants: “You see them little, very little, when they should be here. And when you do see them, you see them too much.” Later, he said, “There was an intervention, I was with my little girl and now she is afraid of the police.” He spoke of “three cars, four motorcycles”, or a deployment of force he felt was disproportionate to the purpose, the “simple” arrest of a young person from the neighborhood. Thus, Sidoine considered that “an intervention, now it is there to create fear and apply pressure. It even scares someone who has nothing to worry about. It’s very bad advertising, you are afraid of being taken in for forty-eight hours by mistake, because that’s happened. Now that the stories are being told, whether it’s true or not… When I see the police, I have fear in my belly.” All agreed, and Noel mentioned the general feeling of “terror”, because “when they see the police, people think they will be confronted, accused or falsely arrested. A person can be arrested without really….” Later, he added, “Yes, it’s clear, you have a certain fear, an apprehension, you can be confused with a criminal.” Ema repeated that for him, “the feeling is really general”. This expression of fear of the police is even more striking since it comes from survey takers whose age, appearance, or general attitude give the impression of father of the family with “no issues” rather than a thug from the suburbs.

41The excerpts quoted also reveal a shift in language. While previously participants put the neighborhood at a distance, once the discussion turned to law enforcement, “we” appeared repeatedly (“we are afraid of being…”, “when we see them we see them too much”). Thus, in answer to the question by the moderator, “What do people from La Villeneuve say about the police?”, Sidoine responded based on a shared identification, including himself right away among the “people from La Villeneuve”: “we hardly see them […]”. In the relationship with the police a “we” is thus constructed with the territory of the neighborhood as the referent. At the same time, gradually a collective entity, “police”, is also defined: the participants were suggesting that the police were not only abusing their power, but that this abuse was deliberate and that the fear caused was the goal. As in the youth group, a picture thus emerged of a police force that does not intervene in the neighborhood as it would elsewhere: it seems to direct itself toward the collectivity “neighborhood”, upon which it wants to “put pressure”. The police appear here as the enemy of the estates, trying to impose their domination. This image crystallized in the rest of the discussion. Ema reported on an experience with the police in La Villeneuve. Even though he said hello to the police officers and politely asked, “So you are coming to pay us a little visit?”, they curtly replied, “What are you doing here?” “Why this attitude of immediately being authoritarian? We want to shake their hands but their attitude makes us react negatively”, he continues. But he said in particular, “The question is, what are you doing here. Here, this is our place.” The relationship with the police here clearly evokes territorial identification, even though until that point the territory was a negative reference. As in the youth group, the neighborhood establishes belonging. It also appears, implicitly, as the “property” of the group that occupies it: the police presence is not fully legitimate there, the police officers not being “in their place”. Ema reaffirmed this: “People say: you can go make yourselves seen elsewhere, here, we are in our place, we don’t want your presence here.” He explained that with the members of his association, they “spoke with the local public authorities: we’re sick of it in the neighborhood. Police officers should only intervene when asked and when there’s a problem.” All agreed.

42If police officers are not legitimate in the neighborhood, it is because the police is perceived as an enemy of the estates. The mention of its goals (“create fear”, “put pressure”) revealed this. Noel then clearly affirmed it: there is “a situation of rejection, because the police is now a matter of opponents”. Ema continues, “They come like masters and rivals who impose themselves.” When the police embody the enemy, they create an identification with the neighborhood that responds to the way it is regarded. This is why Ema, who himself connected youth to the theme of crime, could say, “The police have a poor image of the youth of the neighborhood.” The identity boundaries have shifted: the youth of the neighborhood now belong to the “we”. Territorial identification comes into effect in the relationship to the police force.

43The first exchanges confirmed the existence of a generational gap in La Villeneuve. Depending on the generation, the modes of identification seem at first to be different. But concerning the representation of the police, the adults and youth make use of the same reference to the territory and the grouping it designates.

The adults of the majority and the police

44We also need to ask whether this identity is defined solely based on the territory or whether it also has an ethnic dimension, as we hypothesized. Here, we use the results drawn from the two groups of Whites living in La Villeneuve, which makes it possible to consolidate the analysis. The main conclusion is that the members of these groups, on the one hand, never referred to a “we, inhabitants of the neighborhood” and, on the other hand, did not in principle reject the police. The police were viewed especially through the lens of youth violence from ethnic minorities and defense against assault. From this point of view, the police force was considered to be an ally.

45Thus, the police, as an institution, was never subject to criticism with regards to its modes of operation, or to the climate it creates or its missions. Some participants recognized that there were sometimes “abuses”, but without particular reference to the behavior of police officers in their own neighborhood or in the estates. In addition, they agreed in saying that these abuses were rare, or represented isolated incidents, undermining the behavior of certain officers, but not the police as a whole. A statement in the group of adults summed up the general feeling pretty well: “They are isolated incidents in particular circumstances.” All agreed to this, with one participant adding “that there are stupid people everywhere” (another mentioned “black sheep”). And the participants did not say much about these “abuses”, and instead justified much more the aggressiveness of some police officers in the French suburb estates: “Young people are sometimes also aggressive towards them, I have to say”, “Cops are people”, “They are just people”. The feelings towards the police therefore sharply contrasted with those expressed by members of ethnic minorities living in the same neighborhood.

46The white participants lived there only as inhabitants of the neighborhood, not as members of the grouping it designates. While they did not define themselves as an ethnic group, they specified that their life took place essentially outside of the neighborhood. From this point of view, they are a separate population, which does not perceive itself and is not perceived as representative of the housing estate. One of the members of the group reported that in going to pick up his children at the La Villeneuve day-care center, some youths asked him what he was doing there, adding that he “is not in his place”.

47At the same time, and significantly, the participants of the groups made up of La Villeneuve minorities never talked about the white inhabitants, even when they spoke of ethnic diversity, as if the members of the ethnic majority did not really belong to the neighborhood. In this way, the “we, members of the neighborhood” implicitly refers to ethnic minorities. This appeared more clearly when an adult participant asked, “How do you expect us to feel French?” As Camille Hamidi has already noted, for some inhabitants of underprivileged urban zones, the “territorial dimension has an ethnic signification”, even though “unlike the territorial dimension, the ethnic dimension is not necessarily mentioned spontaneously”. [47] Thus, from the point of view of suburban minorities, ethnic and territorial identities are not opposites but are combined within the same grouping, experienced as “ethno-territorial”. This does not mean, however, that ethnic and territorial identities are equivalent, with the territory just representing a euphemism or indirect way of speaking about race. Rather, it involves ethnic minorities that belong to a specific territory: minorities that live “downtown” are not part of this grouping. The interviewees clearly made this distinction and themselves mentioned the ethnic group in a larger sense when it seemed relevant to them. Thus, in the youth group, concerning discrimination at work, participants spoke of “the Blacks and the Arabs”. But concerning the police, they did not use this term: the police treatment they denounced did not concern the ethnic group in a larger sense, but involved a more limited, ethno-territorial group. This is also the reason why the relations between suburban neighborhoods and the police are not interpreted in terms of racism, a notion that would include all the members of ethnic minorities, outside of the banlieue. Reda’s words, “A police officer apparently said a young person was from a filthy race’”, caused very little reaction, because it is not a matter of race in a larger sense. In the same way, when the moderator asked if “police officers are racist”, the adult members of the ethnic groups were not convinced and did not find the notion was pertinent in accounting for officer abuses. Also, these participants never mentioned race-based checks: the examples given concerning police behavior deemed to be illegitimate always made reference to the neighborhood, rather than being race-based or related to ethnic belonging generally.

48The police are thus seen through the lens of a specifically ethno-territorial mode of identification. We now want to attempt to specify the way in which the police contribute to the construction of this specific ethnic identity, one that is based both on race and territory.

The youth group: hostility towards the police as “cultural transmission”

50In the discussion, what are the reasons youth give for their rejection of the police? First, we can see that the statements almost never refer to interactions they experienced. This is not particularly surprising given the profile of the participants: even though police checks broadly affect minorities and not necessarily based on their behavior, those most involved in crime have more contacts with police officers. [48] Clément (who perceives himself as “Arab”) reported a single experience of a police check: “I was stopped and with me, they were cool” (the police officers found some cannabis on a friend who was with him and they simply confiscated it). While his experience with the police was positive, he nonetheless added, “I’ve also heard other versions”, again emphasizing the importance of reported stories, which provide a counterweight to his own experience. The other participants had never experienced a police check. But Nejib also related indirect experiences: in La Villeneuve, “a police officer apparently said a young person was from a filthy race”. And Yassin explained: “It is the neighbors who talk with the mother on the stairs”, thereby emphasizing the importance of “stories” told in the neighborhood.

51Is the representation of the police constructed based on these stories? This seems doubtful: they did not really motivate the participants, who did not dwell on the subject, and it should be noted that Nejib used the conditional tense in French (“a police officer apparently”), indicating a critical distance. When the moderator asked about the plausibility of the stories told, he received an ambiguous response: of course not everything is true, but “what we hear about is not necessarily exaggerated either”. Several times, with regard to things heard and taken to be probably true, the participants also specified that “this was not our experience”. While the stories circulating were plausible and must be listened to, the participants clearly took some distance from them and never said that they were the basis for their view of the police. Walid spoke of “what we see on television”, but did not dwell on it. He also spoke of rap, considering that the texts concerning the police, stories or facts mentioned “certainly existed […]. It has to come from experience. I don’t think they invented it.” But here Walid was wondering aloud. He did not seem really convinced, and his statements were not echoed in the group.

52In fact, the participants, who were nonetheless well able to argue for or rationalize their positions, struggled to justify their feeling towards the police. Concerning the rejection of the police by La Villeneuve inhabitants, Yassin said that he “doesn’t understand it”. Walid had announced very early in the conversation, “The police and the neighborhoods, it’s the same old story.” The representation of the police thus referred to a certain story that was somewhat old and could not be reduced to current anecdotes reported in the neighborhood. But Walid, while he took part in this conversation about the relations between the estates and the police, was not familiar with the history. It seems then that an attitude toward the police had been perpetuated through diffuse forms of un-attributable transmission. Concerning radical criticisms of the police, Yassin said, “We’ve always heard that”, as if the hostility had saturated them without them knowing exactly how, almost in spite of themselves, or without their active participation. Here, the participants made no mention of direct or even indirect experience of the police, and no reported stories which may have led to an opinion. Only an idea of the institution which is said and repeated. Reda, the participant most hostile towards police officers and who said he was filled with “hate” and many times presented reasoned critiques, expressed this very clearly: “In us, there is always hate – and I mean hate – towards police officers, I don’t know why.” Thus he believed that in the end, in spite of anything he might say, know, or rationalize, he did not know why he hated the police. Thus, participants gave the impression of not knowing the basis of their rejection of the police. What the discussion reveals – for us, but for them as well – is that the reason for their negative view of the institution, the source of their hostility, seems to have been lost and remains so.

53These statements thus show the existence of localized phenomena of “cultural transmission”, or ones that involve “sub-cultures” specific to the banlieues. Representations formed within a group, in a particular historical context, are being passed on even though their origin may have been forgotten. This does not mean that an image of the police is received passively or even for no reason. [49] No doubt, for hostility to be passed on, it must remain “relevant” to a certain degree. In the case of the young participants, the reported experiences and behavior of police officers during “raids” in the neighborhood show that this hostility can be based on real, often indirect experiences. Nevertheless, the view of the police and the hostility directed towards them seems to be primarily inherited and collectively transmitted rather than based on personal experience or opinion (“us, we never experienced anything special”; “we’ve always heard that”).

54And the participants did speak about the way that the transmission of the image of the police takes place. It is passed on, generally, by the talk of the “big brothers”, “the older ones”, or “the big guys”, who belong to the previous generation. They are “around thirty years old”, with a past in crime (they have “done things”, most notably hold-ups) and are listened to – or at least heard – by the neighborhood youth, over whom they exercise some influence. Thus, even the members of the group who were not in a “gang” or spent time on “the streets”, could say that they had “always heard that”: a certain line from the “big guys”. “It’s what the big brothers say. We experienced nothing special”, affirmed Walle. The participants recognized the influence this talk has had on them, even if they do not support the view of “the big guys”. [50]

55A historic and ongoing conflict between the police and the banlieues forms the background (of which people are more or less conscious) that gives meaning to the series of representations concerning the police, and that establishes its image. Participants are thus able to bear witness to hostility toward the police without exactly knowing why, while also having, in spite of this, an obvious reason they are unable to articulate: one mistrusts one’s enemy. Knowing that one has, as a member of a group, an enemy justifies the hostility, without needing any further reason or needing to know the precise history or causes of the conflict inherited (“I really mean hate, without knowing why”). The systems of enmity between families, clans, or larger groupings are clearly inherited.

56In this way, in a very general way among the youth of the neighborhood – beyond those who are on “the streets” and deal the most with police officers – an image of the police or hostility towards the institution is passed on. As an enemy, the police appear to form the basis of a group of belonging, which can be defined based on the existence of an antagonism (the police are opposed to them). The relationship with the police sets the boundaries of the group: the ethno-territorial identity responds to the police identification – real or perceived – of a grouping defined by both race and territory, which sees itself subjected to a specific treatment. In this regard, law enforcement constitutes an agent in the ethnicization of suburban minorities, through the conflict felt within the space of the neighborhood.

Adult participants: the police gaze, a marker of otherness

57Contrary to the youth, the adults make no mention of socialization by “big brothers”, and we do not know whether or not this socialization happened. The adult participants, however, did express how the relationship with the police constantly causes them to be aware of an otherness, a difference from the rest of society. They therefore mention the “look” the police officers give them: “Whatever we do, the police officers scowl at us” (Ema), “In their eyes, we feel like we are always suspect” (Sidoine). Ema explained that they thought that as they aged, the gaze of the police officers would change, but that this has not been the case: “When they look at you, you always have the impression that they are criticizing us for something”, a statement that receives marked approval.

58Noel brought up the possibility that perhaps they were incorrectly interpreting the gaze directed towards them by the police (“Are we making things up, I don’t know…”). But this hypothesis, proposed without much conviction, was not echoed at all by the group, and Noel did not continue along this line. On the contrary, he said very clearly that “the police officers show us that we don’t belong to normal society”. Ema specified: “For them, people in the banlieues do not belong to the rest of society”, “Whatever we do, in their mind, we are always an inhabitant of La Villeneuve.” And towards the end of the interview, when the moderator asked the members of the group whether they felt French, Ema summed up everything in a single sentence: “How do you expect us to feel French when police officers scowl at you?” In this way, the relationship with the police contributes to the consciousness of an otherness, which refers to a “we, members of the neighborhood”, an ethno-territorial identity. In the group of adults, this identification only arises in relation to the police force, which thus appears to be the principal agent in this identity.