Many people from these housing projects never go to the city center and vice versa, according to Fanny Petit, the coordinator of La Collective, a non-profit association in Arles that provides social and psychological services for women. \u201cIt’s like there is a frontier, an invisible frontier.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recent events have shined a spotlight on those living in France\u2019s quartiers populaires<\/em>. On June 27, in Nanterre, a town in the western suburbs of Paris, 17-year-old Nahel M. was fatally shot in the chest by police, for driving off during a traffic check. The recent death of the teenager, who neighbors said was from a family of Algerian origin, triggered rioting and clashes with police around Paris and other communities throughout France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Arles, the reality is complex, leaving both urban and suburban communities with conflicting feelings of solidarity and estrangement. While the Griffeuille may not seem attractive to tourists, it is rich with diversity and home to a close-knit community, said Zachariah Yazidi, a resident of the Griffeuille, who compared himself to a local mail carrier. \u201cWe all know each other, we\u2019re like a big family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Quartiers populaires<\/em> are categorized based on household income, communities where the median income is equal to, or less than, 60% of the national median wage (1,800\u20ac\/month). The people who live in these communities are two times more likely to be immigrants than the national average and three times more likely to be unemployed, according to the Institut Montaigne. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A similar, but not interchangeable, term used is banlieue<\/em>, meaning a set of administratively autonomous neighborhoods that surround an urban center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although it is the largest city in France by land area, Arles has a relatively small population of around 50,000 inhabitants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While riots broke out even in many small French towns, protesters assembled peacefully June 30 in Arles\u2019 Place de la R\u00e9publique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Victor Parodi, who lives in Arles and will attend the University of Paul Valery in the fall, said he thinks that since Arles is a fairly small city, it does not host much social activism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can see right away when you go to the biggest cities like Lyon, Marseille, Paris. This is where there is the most movement, and where there has been the most revolt and break-up,\u201d Parodi said. \u201cFor example, I went to Marseille today. The riots were still two weeks ago and there were dozens of stores with the windows that were totally broken, stores that were looted, that were broken, stolen from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is also not necessarily in small towns where we will see these riots. The purpose of a riot is to see it everywhere, and in small towns people won’t necessarily see them,\u201d said Samuel Lacassin, a recent graduate of Lyc\u00e9e Louis Pasquet in Arles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The assembly in Arles included three audio broadcasts of testimonies from Nahel\u2019s family, as well as other victims of civil rights violations and police brutality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere were 200 people [present], which is not enormous, but it\u2019s consequential for the city of Arles, and there were 50 to 70 young people who came from the banlieue,\u201d said Camille, an organizer of the assembly in Arles who spoke to The Arles Project on the condition of using a pseudonym. \u201cNormally, in these political activist gatherings, most people are White and from the center of town.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Camille, many who attended the assembly in Arles were social activists who have demonstrated together in the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the assembly, those in attendance were given time to speak and pose questions to law enforcement officials who were present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey immediately asked simple questions about their feelings,\u201d Camille said. “A young boy, who is 11, talked about racism that he already knows, as he is a victim of racism at this age, which is very young. He asked the policeman, \u2018Why do you arrest only Arabic and Black people, and why do you control them?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The officers, who stood on the periphery of the assembly, did not respond. A spokesperson for the Arles bureau of the national police told The Arles Project no one was available to comment by press time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Camille, even a simple gathering in homage to Nahel and to denounce police racism is considered a threat to government officials in France. The problem is not just the racism of individual officers, Camille said. \u201cIt’s the laws around it, and how to live with systemic racism in the states and with the police in particular.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn places like the banlieue, where they’re not investing a lot of money and energy into making life better for these people, giving them more work opportunities, and giving them more education opportunities, obviously, there’s going to be economic difficulties,\u201d said Sydney Firsching, an Arles-based intern at SOS Racisme, an organization which aims to combat discrimination and promote community cooperation. \u201cAll crime is a result of economic difficulties, really, in most cases, in many communities.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Police stop teenagers in the Paris banlieue sometimes multiple times per day, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s similar to the reality experienced by Cosmo Arnold, who also recently graduated from Lyc\u00e9e Louis Pasquet in Arles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJust the difference between how you interact with the police, for example, between the center of town and [the fashionable neighborhood] La Roquette, is two different worlds,\u201d Arnold said. \u201cI mean, they won’t do a thing if you’re in town, [but] they will chase you if you do a single bad thing outside of town, not even that far away.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n How can the cycle of poverty, over policing and violence end? \u201cI think it [starts] by taking a step back and realizing how abnormal it is to have a police force that’s defending the state and the interests of a few over everyone else,\u201d Arnold said. \u201cAnd it’s all about not normalizing it. It’s by normalizing it, that it becomes more prevalent.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yazidi agrees. \u201cAs I explained to you, we are like a big family, and that\u2019s why France is rising up. If someone killed someone in your family, someone you know, [you] would rise. At some point, people need to shout to be listened to by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Story by Ella Slade While only a 15-minute walk from the city center, the Griffeuille, one of Arles\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[17,87,88,86],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-places","tag-arles","tag-nahel","tag-police","tag-racism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Slade-Featured-final.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":710,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2023arles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Slade-3-final-1024x576.jpg\")
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