Twenty years after the tragedy that killed Zyed and Bouna in Clichy-sous-Bois, Sarcelles mayor Patrick Haddad calls for reaffirming collective ambition through a national urban plan. Despite undeniable progress in priority neighborhoods, he denounces persistent fractures and budget cuts. In his view, public action must be strengthened amid multiple crises.
On October 27, 2005, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, two teenagers, died electrocuted in Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis) while fleeing a police check. This tragedy sparked riots in France's working-class neighborhoods, exposing deep fractures and igniting a national debate between social and security responses.
In an op-ed in Le Monde, Sarcelles mayor Patrick Haddad challenges the notion that 'nothing has changed.' He highlights substantial progress through programs by the National Agency for Urban Renewal (ANRU): hundreds of housing projects have seen transformed homes, modernized facilities, and redesigned public spaces. These initiatives brought 'breath, consideration, and resources' to the most fragile areas. For nearly eighteen years, no major riots occurred, showing that 'public action, when constant and funded, can indeed appease and dynamize territories.'
Yet Haddad warns of ongoing challenges. Priority neighborhoods, hit hard by terrorist, health, inflationary, and international crises, now concentrate record poverty: nearly one in two residents lives below the poverty line. These areas, home to much of the youth and frontline workers, should be central to economic recovery and republican affirmation. Instead, they face budget cuts: city policy funding decreases even as needs surge. The 2023 riots, unique in history, prompted no measures for social cohesion.
The debate extends beyond finances: the national discourse has shifted rightward, with a dominant security approach driven by a radicalized right and Rassemblement national (RN) ideas influencing even the central bloc. Haddad advocates for a national urban plan to reaffirm collective ambition.