“Here, we cry with joy for a tramway, even though it is malfunctioning” – Libération

“The riots? They made it possible to shine a spotlight on a reality that has been denounced for a long time. Rotten housing, no train station, no swimming pool, no cinema.” Samia, 40 years old, lives in Paris, but she lived the first half of her life in Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis). “When I was in middle school, we didn’t have classes for two months. Teachers were already denouncing their working conditions. But no one listened to them.” She left Clichy in 2006. A year after the death of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, electrocuted in the town’s electrical transformer after being chased by the police. They were aged 17 and 15.

The days of anger brought the reality of Clichy-sous-Bois into full light. The large degraded complexes, the lack of equipment and the isolation of the town (15 kilometers from Paris, but 1 hour 30 minutes by public transport) are then obvious. Twenty years later: half of the city is affected by an urban renewal operation. Public investment is measured in hundreds of millions of euros. Cranes and excavators are everywhere. Politicians cut inauguration ribbons in abundance. The town of 30,000 inhabitants is