the essential
Violence between young people, dismissed leaders, drug use… a cohesion trip for the universal national service (SNU) turned into anarchy last April in the North.
This is certainly not the image we have of the universal national service (UNS). Last April, a cohesion stay turned into chaos in Pas-de-Calais, reports The Parisian. Timéo, a 15-year-old teenager, returned from a two-week trip with a partner and five days of ITT. To our colleagues, his mother wonders: “How is it possible for a trip organized by the State to turn out like this? That incidents occur in camp, that can be understood, but, in this context, I finds it mind-blowing.”
Timéo, 15, left for a two-week “cohesion stay” with young people from Île-de-France. “The most ghetto SNU,” as one participant summed it up.
This high school student from Bondy came home with a cock, 5 days of ITT and a good dose of anxiety u2935https://t.co/Y2n843984l
— Le Parisien (@le_Parisien) https://twitter.com/le_Parisien/status/1795002119050703034?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The first days of the trip, according to the regional daily, passed without incident. But “the more time passes, the less we do things. We do more and more sport, in the evening, there are karaoke or werewolves, but we feel that it’s not really organized”, says Timéo.
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“There were young people whistling the flag”
“Normally, adults have a week of preparation before the arrival of the trainees, that was not done this time,” explains a supervisor at Parisian. “The Friday before the young people arrived, management was still looking for someone to hire. I myself was recruited in a hurry.”
“I had never seen that. There were young people whistling the flag, I still wonder why they were there. There were tutors who were much too close to the young people, and company executives who didn’t really embrace republican values. They were just looking for a job,” the host still remembers.
Joints “in the room of one of the tutors”
The Parisian also mentions violence during the stay. One teenager was allegedly hit with a rubber strap, while another was strangled by two friends. Timéo also remembers the joints that were shot “in the room of one of the tutors”. One of the teenagers at the camp jokes on TikTok, talking about the “most ghetto SNU”.
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The next day, several young people were interviewed before the juvenile brigade. “That day was horrible, several guardians put terrible pressure on us not to give their names to the police, and in fact we said nothing,” says Timéo. Laid-off supervisors return to the center, and some, particularly upset, “throw the garden furniture” and “want to break everything,” explains Dominique.
An ongoing investigation
The same evening, Timéo is attacked by three teenagers, who accuse him of being a “thug” (a “scale”, Editor’s note). “There were three of them, I received a potato on the ear, I couldn’t see anything, I ran as best I could, not straight, I think I fainted.” Taken to hospital, he received 5 days of ITT. His mother files a complaint.
Contacted by The Parisian, the Ministry of National Education assures that these incidents are isolated cases and that an investigation is underway. Without putting the facts into perspective, the ministry highlights a positive outcome, with “a satisfaction rate of more than 96%” among young people who participated in the universal national service, implemented since 2019.
