On June 27, 2023, young Nahel died of a bullet fired by a police officer in Nanterre. The anger of young people in working-class neighborhoods has exploded in more than 550 municipalities. A year later, put into perspective with the historian and political scientist Thibault Tellier, who devoted a work to a news item from 1983, the year which saw “suburban sickness” become chronic.
In July 1983, a 9-year-old boy, Toufik Ouannés, was killed by a pellet rifle shot at the foot of a building in the Cité des 4.000 in La Courneuve (Seine-Sa int-Denis). In 1983, this news story with national repercussions was interspersed with a series of violence in the suburbs, including several “racist crimes”.
In the cities on the outskirts of Lyon, young people called “the second generation” of immigrants are calling on political power and public opinion by organizing the “march against racism and for equality” to the Élysée. This “March of Arabs”, as the media described it, confirms the year 1983 “as a breaking point. There is no longer any doubt about the malaise of the suburbs,” notes Thibault Tellier, professor of contemporary history at Sciences-Po Rennes.
