Unrest and killing rock Nanterre during France's riots
The crisis in France is boiling over in Nanterre, where you can get an all-round view. But if you are a journalist, keep your head down.
I am aggressively directed to keep away from a group of young men - some bearded, one built like a bodybuilder - outside the Le 35 café.
Women wearing Islamic headscarves shout abuse at passing cars at the scene where police killed a 17-year-old boy of Algerian descent last Tuesday.
You can catch glimpses of the last catastrophic few days by wandering through the streets incognito - without a camera or notebook.
Three middle-aged white ladies, Lucille, Marie and Jeanne, are chatting with a black male friend on a bench outside their block of flats. Like many other apartment blocks in Nanterre, this one is pristine and surrounded by gardens. They don't want to be photographed because they fear that their children will be identified and targeted. However, they are happy to chat.
The last three nights have been appalling. From midnight to 4am, it's a riot outside our windows. We can't sleep. It's like living on another planet," Lucille says. When one of Nanterre's young residents, Nahel, was shot dead at a police check, may they not understand the anger from the rioters?
This riot has nothing to do with what happened. Of course, the kid shouldn't have been killed. But what was he doing joyriding without a licence at eight in the morning, when children are going to school?" Marie looks at a smashed bus shelter with graffiti that reads, "One cop, one bullet".
There are good and bad in every group of people," she says. They have little time for the dead teenager's mother, Mounia, who marched in memory of her son last Thursday.
"What was she doing on that open-top van in the march? That wasn't a march of grief. She's playing politics." Each nods in agreement.
Across the street, on the Avenue Georges Clemenceau, lined with plane trees, the préfet of the Hauts-de-Seine department has surveyed the wreckage of the local tax office. Firework rockets fired by rioters have left gaping holes in upper-floor windows. At street level, every pane has been broken with a heavy instrument. Charred tax forms litter the entrance. "Deplorable, lamentable." he says.
The tax inspector Cyril, who lives in Nanterre, declines to be photographed. "What I feel is just wretched sadness," he adds. "This tax office serves the people of Nanterre. It is used to buy services for them. There is no point in attacking it. It is a totally disproportionate response."
Cyril, however, says he is generally sympathetic with people who want to protest against Tuesday's killing. I'm not sure if racist cops are correct. Let's just say they're rude. There have been many rough cases around here, often because kids did something stupid.
