ÉMILIE SETO

FRANCE

From the 1983 March for

Equality and Against
Racism to the 2023 riots
in France: 'Even when
outbursts of anger
recur, they fail to
translate into political
action'
 By Anne Chemin

Published on October 15, 2023, at 1:00 am (Paris)

13 min.

Subscribers only

CONVERSATION | While one focused on the banlieues in the

1980s, during a peaceful movement of young residents from
immigrant backgrounds, the other looked at the following
generations, marked by the riots of 2005 and 2023. In a
conversation with Le Monde, François Dubet and Fabien
Truong analyze 40 years of controversy surrounding the
situation in French working-class neighborhoods.

October 15 marks the 40th anniversary of the 1983 March for

Equality and Against Racism in France. Initiated by young
residents of Les Minguettes housing estate in Vénissieux, near
Lyon, after months of police violence and clashes with law
enforcement, this endeavor advocated for the principles of non-
violence, the value of fraternity and the virtues of co-education.
Setting out from Marseille on October 15, the marchers were
greeted triumphantly by 100,000 people in Paris on December 3,
1983, before being received at the Elysée Palace by former socialist
president François Mitterrand.

Forty years later, in July 2023, the French banlieues – here referring
to working-class suburbs with residents from immigrant
background – were set ablaze by the death of Nahel M., a teenager
killed by a policeman in Nanterre. While the origins of the anger
remained the same – police violence – the murder triggered not a
peaceful march, but riots. How can we analyze this contrast 40
years on? After decades of urban policy, how can we understand
this enduring French "suburban issue"? To address these
questions, we brought together two sociologists who have worked
on working-class neighborhoods, youth and racism: François
Dubet and Fabien Truong.

Read more Riots in France: Key lessons from social, political and educational crisis

Professor emeritus of sociology at the Université de Bordeaux,

Dubet has conducted research in several French banlieues,
including at Les Minguettes, from 1983 to 1986. The result was La
Galère: Jeunes en Survie ("The Struggle: Young People in Survival,"
untranslated, Fayard, 1987), a book that explores the 1983 March
for Equality in detail. He is also the author of La Préférence pour
l'Inégalité. Comprendre la Crise des Solidarités ("The Preference for
Inequality: Understanding the Solidarity Crisis," untranslated,
Seuil, 2014); Le Temps des Passions Tristes. Inégalités et Populisme
("Th Ti fS dP i I liti dP li "