Life in the banlieue

June 12th 2007

According to Wikipedia, “the word banlieue is more frequently used to describe areas of low-income apartments and social housing.” And I can confirm that’s how it’s used in France. Technically, it means the suburbs. And technically I live in the banlieue, and if someone asks me “Do you live in Paris?” I could very well respond, “Non, I live in the banlieue“. It’d be obvious from my social status that I don’t live in a low-income housing area.

But now I’m going to correct myself, because actually I do live in a low-income housing area now that I think about it. My street is not, but within a couple minutes walk there are low-income housing. The French government tries to put social housing in all cities. And unfortunately our street is one of the main pedestrian streets so we get a lot of people going to/from the social housing. Several months ago when there were some mini-riots going on in the Paris area, a car parked in front of our apartment building was burned by some kids. I guess we’ll wait to buy our new car until after we get our new house.

Yesterday I started a short 1-2 week assignment in Bagnolet, also in the banlieue. So far it has been a lot more interesting socially than professionally. Yesterday was Monday, when there is a huge marché aux puces (”flea market”). As my coworker (the one with the vest) said, it is like the markets in Morocco.

Today I watched some young men (16-24) hanging around their apartment complex, on the corner of the street. They were right across the street from my desk, which was right by the window. So I’m looking out casually watching people walk by wearing their jalabas (traditional muslin outer robe) and Muslim hats when I notice the police are now there. One of them has this odd gun, it must shoot bean bags or something. They’re rounding up the guys, searching them, patting them down, etc. After about half an hour they take them to the police cars in hand cuffs. Another guy in the room says he knows their faces and they’re always breaking into cars on the street. “You must not park on this side of the building” he says, and then adds “I’m serious!”. So cool! No more bad guys. And I go back to work.

About half an hour later I notice they’re back, all five of them. And they’re back on their corner, shaking hands with their allies and staring down their enemies. One of them caught me staring a little too long and started shouting at me, I didn’t take my eyes off the computer screen until I left. And when I left I kept looking behind me! Ok I exaggerate a little but on the way to the metro I saw the area which was the flea market the day before was now full of parked cars. And one of them had it’s passenger side window broken out. I guess they left a telephone or GPS in the car. Heck they say if you even have suction cup marks on the windshield people will break into your car hoping you have a GPS.

Well that was all in the first day and a half. Needless to say, I am willing to sacrifice my bill rate in exchange for finishing the assignment early and getting the heck out of there!

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