NON-FICTION | Special edition | 2025

A special episode of Thinking the 9-3 for the 20th anniversary of the riots

In 2025, we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the suburban riots. This was a pivotal political movement in our recent history, which began in Clichy-sous-Bois, in the heart of Seine-Saint-Denis. On October 27, 2005, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré died in an electrical transformer while fleeing from the police. On October 30, 2025, a company of CRS riot police threw a grenade into a mosque a few hundred meters away. These two events ignited the anger of French youth, who took to the streets night after night for three weeks. Clichy became the center of media attention. It gained a biased image as the archetype of a suburban town. Then came a huge urban renewal plan.

Following 2005, numerous movements attempted to address the causes of these riots. But deaths resulting from police action continued in the department and throughout France. And the death of Nahel Merzouk in 2023 in Nanterre sparked renewed violent riots in the 93rd department and elsewhere. So, as we walk around Clichy-sous-Bois, we wonder why police violence continues.

With: Fabien Jobard, researcher at the CNRS, specialist in policing and law enforcement. He is the co-author, with Olivier Fillieule, of the book Policies of disorder. Police control of demonstrations in France , Seuil, 2020.

And Mariam Cissé, deputy mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois in charge of housing and sustainable living, and co-founder of AClefeu.

An episode produced by Making Waves
Conceived and directed by Antoine Tricot
Mixing and original music by Martin Delafosse