Another Saturday Night

On Saturday evening, Ryad Hamlaoui went out to celebrate ; he had been offered a job - one of the 'emplois jeunes' that the government invests in to keep the young and unqualified off the streets, and, hopefully, to give them the work experience that will make them attractive to real employers. Ryad, a bottle of whisky in his pocket, did the rounds of the clubs and the bars of his part of the town of Lille, letting his friends know about his good fortune.

Some days earlier, a policeman had been manhandled by a gang of youths, beaten up. His colleagues, said the grapevine, were looking for revenge, out trying to cause trouble. My gang's tougher than your gang.

At a little after midnight, someone sees a couple of young men peering into the windows of the parked cars. The police are called ; when they get there, the two men have broken into a car and are sitting in the front seats while one of them tries to get the engine to turn over. One of the policemen goes to the driver's side of the vehicle, and tells the man sitting there to get out. He does so. Meanwhile, a second policeman, a dog-handler, goes to the other side of the car. He is close to the window, but cannot see through it clearly, because of the condensation. He sees the man sitting inside lean forward suddenly. A second later, Ryad Hamlaoui is dead, a bullet in the back of his head.

Tuesday morning. I'm listening to the radio ; I learn that the riots in the suburbs of France's northern capital have died down after it was announced that the policeman who fired the bullet is to be charged with first-degree homicide ; the judge has concluded that he intended to kill. It is very unusual for a policeman to be charged with murder after what the French call a 'bavure', and the Police Federation protest angrily. I switch the radio off and leave the flat to walk to the tube.

As I turn right out of the Allées Gambetta into the main road, three young men overtake me. They are moving at a fast trot - no great hurry. One of them apologizes to a woman as he brushes past her, on his way down towards the supermarket a little further along. As I follow them, a police car draws up beside me, and a couple of uniformed officers squeeze their way out of the doors and begin to run in the same direction as the other men. I then see that a second police-car has already pulled up, just beyond the supermarket, at the entrance to an underground car park. A large uniformed policeman jumps out, and runs into the car-park entrance. A second later he dashes back and pulls a long police baton out of the back of the car, turns around and races back into the car-park. As I draw abreast, he emerges. He is gripping a black child of about ten or eleven years old by the scruff of his neck, shaking him and yelling in his ear. He is in such a rage that his words are incomprehensible to me ; the boy looks up at him and shambles forward. Behind him, one of his colleagues emerges, his hand resting on the shoulder of a little arab boy.

Further along, I meet the men who had first passed me. They have with them a bunch of little boys - North African and West Indian. The men are relaxed ; a striking contrast with their uniformed colleague. The little boys, shoulders hunched, seem inured to their fate.

The next day, Ryad Hamlaoui's body is flown to Algeria. He is to be buried in the village from which his father migrated to France over three decades ago. The father is quoted by my newspaper as saying «J'ai travaillé trente ans en France et j'ai eu un beau cadeau: un policier a tué mon fils.» About one hundred people in Lille have nowhere to work this morning ; their offices have been burnt down by the angry crowd.

One of the articles in Monday's paper is about corruption in Lille. The journalist implies that it is a miniature banana republic, the police, the local authorities and the judiciary all being up to their eye-balls in baksheesh. Laurent Fabius, the new Minister of Finance, announces that he does not understand why people protest against the World Bank and the FMI, both of which are doing a fine job in the war against poverty.

Comments to me at tmason@timothyjpmason.com.