Interview posted online in December 2020 on the Lieux Communs website, then published in Brochure Empire Drives, Imperial Thrusts in Western SocietiesNovember 2021. It has given rise, in the meantime, to a two-part “Radio Libertaire” broadcast, “Sexual violence in immigrant neighborhoods,” available here
« All life is a process of demolition (...) the mark of a first-rate intelligence would be that it is able to fixate on two contradictory ideas without losing the ability to function. For example, one should be able to understand that things are hopeless, and yet be determined to change them »
F.Scott Fitzgerald, The crack
Gabriel, you are going to share with us the testimonies that you have collected from young people in the suburbs, but first can you briefly introduce yourself?
I worked in Seine-Saint-Denis for more than six years before doing something completely different, first in a private association that dealt with helping minors in difficulty (wandering, family breakdown, isolated minors, etc.) then in a public sector that dealt with minors already in care, young people "on a young adult contract" or in various follow-ups by social services.
All these testimonies are real, redundant and very familiar to many social workers. They are rarely disclosed because there is the notion of professional secrecy, but also out of habit, we do not talk about these things outside or very little, in the same way that a battered woman will not go and talk about her difficulties, it is a mixture of modesty and "duty of reserve". I would like to point out that I have a certain number of colleagues who resign or who are chronically absent; others, with a more opportunistic profile, having no sense of public service, taking advantage of their newly acquired permanent status, can only work 3 months a year without being worried either financially or by their hierarchy, they take sick leave without reserve. Finally, there are all those who are on antidepressants in order to continue doing the job, that is to say not enough or even not much: removing the child from the family unit or the surrounding environment, moving him or putting him in a home, which is sometimes much worse, especially for young girls and homosexual adolescents, because they are easy targets.
There are also a number of teenagers who pretend to be what they are not, so as not to suffer the wrath of the little thugs and to see themselves mistreated in turn. Here we find the mafia system in all its clarity, if you are not with us you are against us.
The young people mentioned here are between 12 and 17 years old, some are adults and all come from 93.
Can you give us some examples?
I will begin with unwritten testimonies that I remember, but which remained for me quite revealing of the distress and brutality of the environment for these young people.
Every day, every night, rain or shine, in corners of middle schools or high schools (yes, middle schools too), backyards of buildings, apartments or cars at the back of parking lots, young girls get their faces, dignity or ass kicked in with total indifference, no, sorry, here and there some " Oh oh, la, la! How horrible! That makes you look young, poor kid… thank you, goodbye”. In case some people haven't realized it yet, lawless zone doesn't mean anything, because there is a right: that of the strongest. A right, a law and even customs.
So here it is. Heard, collected at the hospital or in various social services, often redundant, giving rise to complaints or not according to the wishes of the teenagers, here are testimonies whose anonymity of course remains essential.
They repeat themselves and very often resemble each other:
- "OHe was leaving college, he said just walk me home and he carried my bag with my stuff in it. When we were in front of his door he opened it and threw my bag down the hall, I said why are you doing this and I ran to get my bag, then he closed the door and he insisted for two hours, I was afraid that his mother would come back so we did it, then I had to leave quickly, it was my first times. I forgot my bag but he screamed when I rang the bell. I came home and that's when my cousin hit mee because everyone had finished their meal, I was expected, I didn't dare say anything »
- « L'educator told me that it was not normal to kiss your boyfriend's penis first when you have never kisseds on the mouth before, but I have girlfriends who do it too, so I didn't think about it, it's done. But I know that if he asks you to do it to his friends, then it's not normal. Afterwards I have girlfriends who do it to please their boyfriend. Afterwards it's difficult, once it starts the boys don't let you go"
- « We go to the toilet together, it's better otherwise boys ask you for blowjobs"
- « You have to hit another girl, any, otherwise you don't show your strength, they take you for a weakling, and then the boys laugh at you and sometimes they take you behind and touch you and everything. Once I even hit a girlfriend of mine but everyone does that, if you're weak you get hit too much afterwards"
- « J'I did trust the girl, she took me to her boyfriend's house but then she left and some boys came, I had to sleep with everyone, I'm afraid it will start again and especially that it will get out, my father will kill me"
- « J'didn't want to go out with a boy, he put my name on "balance ta keh" on snap. Even if you didn't do anything, once you're on it you're like a whore, and if you get raped it's your fault. I'm still a virgin and I get insulted, I don't go to class anymore, I'd like change high school. There was a boy I liked, he calls me a slut, that's hard for me"
- « Il told me or you suck me and i will sayi nothing, or you don't suck me and then i will sayi to everyone you did it, so I did it, he still said it. I would like leave, I can't stand the insults anymore, I stopped going to class"
- « He made me like my first boyfriend, so that there wouldn't bet brand: he puts his hand down under my ribs, pushes and goes up and it hurts a lot, so I say yes, now I think more, I let myself go. Even if he's my boyfriend, Sometimes I don't want to but I have no choice"
- « My mother didn't want me to say what my uncle did, after that I was placed, and I was raped several times near the home but after that it stopped, They were nice. I was told in the family you are worthless, in the meantime I have 6 euros and sometimes more since I do thisnameIn the hotel room, next to a boy always watches if everything is going well, I trust, he was in my high school. I sometimes see three people a dayr but at 16 I stopped, I'm going back to my big sister's, she has room for me"
- « After an argument with my father I went for a walk outside and I didn't want to go back in, a man said come sleep at my place, you can't stay outside, I haveû do you know what to him on the stairs, then he insisted, I was scared, I slept with him twice, he was getting mean and at 5 o'clock he brought me backe to the tram. AndWhen I came home my brother hit mee and so I have a swollen eye now"
- « J 'I took the train to go see my sister at her home, I walked while waiting for it to open and a man offered me to wait at his place. TheHe seemed nice, we ate, and then I remember a car with shapes in it, I was sitting in the back and I woke up with my panties down, I was in a parking lot, it was already Saturday and I found my sister. She told me to be careful next time"
And what about the boys?
- « J'was with a friend, he told me come on let's go to my cousin's apartment, her mother is not there. There was a girl there who was not well, she was half asleep and my boyfriend slept with her, then he told me go ahead, so I pretended. I sleep better, I often think about the girl, she is still in the neighborhood and gets insulted, I insult her too, I do like everyone else"
- « I was asked to hold the arms of a sleeping girl, she didn't move, I didn't understand, I left, I felt bad, I didn't know what to do, after the two people young people went in prison and a friend told me that one of the two gets raped every night there, it's his girlfriend who said it"
- « J'was with friends and some guys came on a scooter, my banana was stolen, I was shocked, my boyfriend took a right, they hit him, I ran but in the small street they kicked me everywhere. I saidtto my mother that I fell with someone's scooter, as I was bleeding. I do more sports because we have to pass in front of another high school and it's dangerous. I smoke every day, like that I forget, I'm afraid as soon as I go out, I turn my head constantly, I feel like I'm going crazyu »
- « All my girlfriends are stronger than me, I got hit so much because I wore makeup and I was a boy, Now I protect myself, if my friends weren't here I wouldn't go out at all"
We could of course go on for a long time, and there is of course more violent things. Rapes, gang rapes, constant pressure, fellatio on the sly, beatings of young people, are done with complete impunity every day, and every day a penis enters a mouth or a body that does not want to, and some young people who are repeatedly terrified pretend to be or say nothing to avoid the worst. There is the law of the strongest, and the silence of the lambs. Why hold back? No one will say anything. Lost territories of morality and consent. Freedom is not and will never be a perpetual debauchery.
This must have consequences in public life...
A lot of stress about clothing. The choice seems simple: dress in a way that is not attractive or noticeable (masculinize yourself or constantly be in the position of a "young mother" who takes care of the shopping and the young brothers and sisters, wear a veil and a shapeless outfit while showing ostentatious piety, etc.) or dress as you want and plunge into the infernal spiral of criticism, micro-aggressions or rapes that can lead the young person to prostitute herself, little by little or brutally, that is to say overnight. One thing is certain: once the environment (neighbors, some young people in the neighborhood) have decided to identify and label the young person as " turkey », it's over, there's no way out, and when I say no it's very real. There is nothing harder than redeeming what I would call social virginity, even if you are still a virgin. There is a very efficient and unstoppable factory of the guilty, which allows you to have young girls on hand to abuse and brutalize. From what I have seen, only one thing really works: having a child and being taken in by maternity homes, leaving home and, when you come back, having a stroller loaded with shopping and a maternity life with a sort of protective status. In short, going from whore to mother. Even if you never wanted to be either a whore or a mother. Motherhood saves you from hell. So there is escape, exploitation or becoming a mother.
Clothes, even if they are designed not to attract attention, pose problems for the young girls I have met, particularly in the most isolated areas of Seine-Saint-Denis such as Aulnay, Tremblay, Clichy sous-bois and certain corners of Drancy.
Young girls are careful not to " show their butts », that's what one of them told me. That is to say, having pants means being naked unless you can't see the back. As for the front, if I may say so, a good number of young girls put diapers of paper in their panties before going to school or simply outside, because they are embarrassed to have their crotch stared at. I quote from memory: " if we see there, it's not good, you're getting fucked ». Nothing should give rise to comments, no bumps, no colors, so to speak no visible skin. A large, covered cube, certainly not attractive – the Kaaba… Ha, ha, ha, I'm kidding...
How do these girls experience it?
Younger teenage girls are extremely naive despite the level of violence they may exhibit (talk wesh, exchanging blows with their girlfriends to look cool, very loud voices, etc.); some are offered to perform fellatio on a boy, then on others and it's a vicious cycle. Sometimes they are paid by a kebab shop or 20 euros when it happens with older men. Either they are naive and do not realize the consequences, or they do it out of bravado, thinking they are " free women » because in their heads everything can get mixed up: to fight against an ambient prudishness and the many codes, they think they will free themselves by taking action. The number of young girls who started their sexual and romantic life with fellatio is edifying, and this is even before any exchange of kisses. Some of my colleagues use the word "pimping" which is revolting, it is a question of describing young girls " resourceful » (meaning: who do not have pimps) who manage to have income in order to buy things, but who do not seem to be truly caught up in networks. They are similar to the Zaïa model or the figures found on reality TV. The scam consists of making them believe that they are free and emancipated when they are just another commodity. The main site, a few years ago, was vivastreet but social networks very easily give all kinds of discreet visibility, if I may say so.
It seems to me that sexual social peace is bought at the price of even partial silence on all this violence. As a young teenager told me: no problem if you want to find a girl, there is always someone who knows someone who knows where to find a girl. easy », to be understood as no longer being able to defend oneself. I have had to take charge of young girls who were so damaged that it was necessary to ensure that they did not breathe too hard or get too close, otherwise they would create real states of panic with bodily rigidity and vagal discomfort.
Do these girls all have the same profile?
We can say that there are three categories in this world of prostitution and assault: defenseless young girls, damaged and used relentlessly, abused and drugged, then young girls who agree to prostitute themselves without suffering physical violence, such as beatings and confinement, and finally young girls with strong characters who decide with whom and when they will prostitute themselves. Their ages vary between 13 and 18, but one of them told me that 15 was already a bit old.
Apart from the neighbourhood pimps, there are networks of African madams who take in young girls who have just arrived from Mali or Congo and who are either taken in by social services or have no defined status, and therefore are completely illegal. They sometimes go to Paris to see what are called " uncles » and can earn 200 euros per sexual encounter. I have met mature women who were hosting up to 6 young girls who were not used to their new environment, who knew no one and were therefore very malleable. When one of them ran away and came to the reception centre, there was clearly a loss of income for the " aunt », who didn't want any trouble and asked to take the girl back, or on the contrary didn't want to know anything more about it. Some of these young girls were placed following worrying information transmitted to the public prosecutor's office, then their trace is lost once they are taken in by the department. There is nothing concrete to offer them apart from a placement, but given the state of some homes, it is not uncommon for them to be abused even there.
Regarding other situations of violence, some young girls arrived in a pitiful state, deprived of food, locked up in their homes, beaten and having literally fled the home. The family refused to give them any freedom, the intra-family environment was squalid, the outside world was considered a danger and the parents absolutely did not want their child to socialize, for fear of abduction or violence. When the young girl resisted, I often heard the story of a family council, the young girl being tied to a chair while people discussed and palavered to find a solution, then beaten by a brother or an uncle and finally punished. Depending on the environment and education (I do not use the word culture which has nothing to do with these barbarities), they were either beaten and then locked in a room for a few weeks, or their heads were shaved, or rather obscure ceremonies were performed on them, with chili peppers inserted into the vagina or eyes. I was told: " a friend of mine, her mother put pepper everywhere and even on her sex because she went out late and she shaved her hair, now she is locked up at home, I don't see her anymore at high school."...
Their families are not supportive?
When some of the girls arrived at the centre, I felt like a survivor clinging to a lifeboat with all their might, or as if they were arriving at the doors of an embassy to find help. Some were in shorts and poorly dressed, the most resourceful arrived with their Vitale card and their ID, on a one-way trip. Unfortunately, sometimes they had to return to their family, the evidence being too thin or the pressure too great. Sometimes the family came to claim them from 20 people… These are dramatic situations: the law does not allow everyone to be legally protected and, unfortunately, there is the notion of parental authority. But there are still often ways to help these teenagers; sometimes we manage to find a trustworthy person to take charge of the young girl, or help her protect herself by tricking her, or be patient while waiting for her to come of age.
These young girls have bodies that do not belong to them, as if they were cars driven by others, nothing is possible except obey and conform. There is great support in the friendly fabric, they help each other, recharge their batteries, the friendships are extremely strong, some hide their cell phones by cutting the canvas of their mattress to have a minimum of social life. It is the system of getting by.
What is terrible is the social pressure, the gaze of the father, the brother, the neighbor, the massive anxiety of the mother who is supposed to be responsible for education and takes absolutely all the reproaches from those around her. The father is absent or only intervenes to threaten and hit, called for help by the mother who lives alone. Once the shame is installed, that the adolescent is stigmatized as a bad girl, that she dares to flee or to speak about it, she is either rejected in the mode - " you are not our daughter anymore » – either sent back to the country or kept under a daily yoke in extreme surveillance, and they bend while waiting for their majority. Those who come out the best leave everything behind them, one hand in front of one hand behind, as they say.
What is the social and cultural context of all these young people?
The teenage girls in difficulty that I have met almost all have 2 things in common: they were more or less abused in their childhood and/or in their social environment (a relative, an uncle, a brother, half-brother or cousin and sometimes their own father, or touching at school or in their neighborhood) and the father is absent from their discourse, either because they do not know him, or because he has started another family elsewhere, or because he intervenes so little that they do not mention him. This absence is almost an invariant, I must have seen less than 10 fathers in all, is it modesty or a real renunciation of taking charge of their teenager who has become problematic?
Many parents, and therefore mothers, worked backbreaking jobs, holding down several small jobs, but a good quarter were not active at all and had no financial independence. The environment therefore ranged from very poor to the lower middle class.
And in terms of cultures of origin?
As for geographical origins, I was able to meet families mainly from Mali, Senegal and Congo, but also from the Comoros and India, or the Maghreb, mainly Morocco and Algeria, very few from Tunisia. There were a few families from Eastern countries, Macedonia and Moldova, and also a few families of settled gypsies from Romania. Of course also families of French origin, very proletarian, for the most part. I have very rarely seen families or young people from Ethiopia or Asian countries, otherwise there can be people of all origins. There are also teenagers who arrived in France after wandering with their mother and brothers and sisters, in an extremely perilous migratory journey where there was violence against the mothers, sometimes even on the boat and in front of the children; There are things that are barely describable, I come back to this inhumanity that truly signals the monstrosity of the law of the strongest. There are young people who were born in France, and others who have been here for two years or less. It is especially the first year, I think, that there are problems of runaways or mistreatment that are reported.
Yet the suburbs claim to be a land of rebellion: how can we explain this silence?
The indignant demonstrations that we see flourishing especially in the suburbs, and for some rightly so, seem to be mostly made only by and for those who resemble each other: 16-25 year old males who are subjected to chokeholds, batons in the face, various abuses, and all of this is reprehensible. But, and firstly, righteous anger is still too often instrumentalized to serve identity-based political agendas, whether they are " racialists”, “decolonialists” or “clericalists” », and secondly, the daily drama of repeated sexual abuse of young minors, mostly girls but also young boys, gay or not, is constantly hidden.
The demands for equal rights for all are therefore, for the moment, mainly royal gateways to these new essentialist extreme right which assigns to predefined places and stirs up anti-fraternal separatism, sending young men stuck in this ideological mousetrap as fodder for fighting.
We can't demand an end to illegitimate police violence and smoke weed in front of our building entrance when there, on the 5th floor, a 15-year-old girl in a trance is being raped. Otherwise, what? We only fight for the rights of those who look like us? Would we be in privileges to be preserved, the practical-practice of impulsive relief justifying all cowardice?
I will not give any, absolutely no, credibility to the demonstrations in the housing projects for an end to police violence as long as these young people do not also raise their voices against some of their peers, for whom a regular sexual life has been based for far too long on touching and raping young girls, whose Pavlovian operant conditioning is already dramatically established (you say " immense "a slap, you say" immense "a punch, and when you say " Yes "You're happy if you only get a slap, you have to maintain the fear and the violence).
Let's stop the madness with the " rape culture », Let's leave the guys from France of all origins alone, and let them give us a break with " conceptualtés intersectional relativists » who carefully omit those who could be dangerous, those whose hunting ground from dawn to dusk remains the streets. We must give courage to young people disgusted by what they see, give them the strength to free themselves from the speeches that instrumentalize them, and that they be supported in this courage to say " no, you leave her calm ".
And what about your colleagues?
I have had different kinds of colleagues, apart from those who do their job ethically and without expecting any personal compensation: those who don't care and repeatedly go on sick leave, with little concern for the workload left to their colleagues; those who try to save the whole world, are waiting for recognition and end up worn out, porous and demobilized; and those who use access to adolescents as a breeding ground from which the vital forces of the " racialism » and " decolonialism ». These colleagues sometimes intervene in schools, have a ready-made speech where we find the invariants of these ideologies: France produces their misery, secularism is racism, you will never be integrated, no need to work at school, Human Rights are those of the white man. Their muses are generally Rokhaya Diallo, Houria Bouteldja and Saïd Bouamama.
It's very complicated to point this out when you see that the leaders don't care or endorse it in the Edwy Plenel or Eric Fassin way, in a self-flagellation or a morbid pleasure to see thus decried what this country could transmit positive. Some young people are not fooled, I saw some who wanted to join the army, to be useful, to give themselves the means despite the speeches encountered. The books made available to adolescents in one of the many places where I was able to work (as a replacement when I was temporary) mainly talked about rap culture, I saw very very few founding works or which open up reflection, or there were old comics without interest, nothing that could help the young person to find something other than what he has at home, therefore. There are institutions that are either complicit or resigning, many places that help and support adolescents in difficulty are overwhelmed, so there is a choice: let yourself live, find and keep your little place as a civil servant, or become an activist. decolonial »Between ignorance and laissez-faire, those responsible and others n + 1 have generally been silent or complicit. There is a huge rate of sick leave in the social sector, I have never seen that anywhere else.
Does this create tension within teams?
Tensions are sometimes palpable at work, it is enough to simply suggest one day in a meeting to put " geographical origin » instead of " cultural origin » on some information sheets to cause a crisis, while the origin of a kid does not necessarily say anything about his thoughts and practices. Do we put ourselves in the place of the kid to whom we ask " What cultural background are you from?, to what extent could it impact him and make him operate an unconscious allegiance to certain practices linked to his origin? There are also words like "ddemocracy, secularism, drights of man, caricatures, blasphemy » which create immediate tensions and one must know how to remain cautious in order not to be labeled. These are words which trigger ideological discourses of the type "r"acialist" and " decolonial », we feel the formatted, established, non-debatable and discussed thought, it's like a bible, in fact, whose invariants we would find in each small oriented remark: school is useless, there are injustices due to color and origins, this country flouts justice and equality, etc. As soon as it is a question of origins or politics, or even French culture (especially do not quote a philosopher, otherwise hilarious colleagues can make you pass for a class 1st), something starts up in some people and the tension is palpable.
It is this ideology " decolonial » Who creates this tension?
In some meetings we feel it very present, but there is a lot of language that could be described as infra-verbal: frowns, sighs, glances, we walk on eggshells but the explosion never happens, there is the desire to continue working as a team, and the restraint that means that everything remains allusive; for example a colleague who says " He is Charlie himself ! » about a kid who wants to become a police officer (no connection, by the way!) or an educator proud to say that the teenager, after she spoke to her, doesn't feel « more French » But " belonging to the world", nationality means nothing, the country is too riddled with injustices, etc. I have also seen young colleagues transform themselves through contact with " of indigenous people », to increase the intensity of the criticisms made of France but without any hindsight, or like this young man who was starting out, quite neutral and open, after two weeks, he was already talking about " reconnect with one’s Africanness” and after things got worse, he came with the magazine "Negus »
[1]and only spoke about injustices and slavery as soon as there was a moment of exchange, relying on Lilian Thuram or Rokhaya Diallo to support his opinion. But these are more than opinions since it is impossible to debate, overall everything is latent, allusive, and there is no longer access to discussion, these frank discussions that we can have in politics. That is why I speak of ideological discourse based on single thought, a discourse that does not tolerate counterpoint, reasoned discussion, all the ready-made thinking is already there. It is quite painful, in all the places where I was I would have liked to exchange, the discussion does not scare me, but it was too tense.
Do you detect a “racial” dimension?
Looking back, I think that the movement "Justice for Adama" just allowed the words to become less complex, but the ideology was already there, maintained, conveyed, tolerated by certain department heads, either because they don't care, or because they are part of the mentality of South Education or League for the Defense of Human Rights which is very particular. The target of these remarks and these attitudes that I have been able to see is France in general, nothing is exonerating, it seems like a constant trial and especially this " colorism » disastrous. As a white person, I was tolerated by some colleagues because I was interested in politics and I had no money, so I was associated with the left-wing guy with no money, a white person who has nothing to envy and who could be an ally to eventually change the system. I always kept a low profile because I needed to work and I couldn't burn myself out in my temp agency, everyone knows everything, the social world is small.
This must have consequences for the kids….
When a colleague decides that you don't think " in your good ", you can be restricted from accessing teenagers or avoided from having recourse to you, it is a way of restricting even more the offers of thoughts. There are many awkwardnesses made with teenagers in the homes and places where I have been able to pass. I hear " don't act like a princess" to a kid who wanted nail polish remover to change her nail polish, and once I saw an educator, a temporary worker like me, so not there for long or for a long time, yell at a young girl because she had ultra " wesh ». Did he wonder for a second if that didn't protect her from something, if it didn't prevent her from being considered a weak girl and therefore attackable? No, it was direct guilt, even though he never took back a boy with the same attitudes and the same language. The survival reflexes of some girls are not analyzed at all, one wonders what training the educators receive. From what I have seen, I clearly associate these attitudes with sexism, the practices that we can see in certain neighborhoods persist at certain times within certain institutions. If young girls do not find any firm and repetitive discourse that considers them equal in law to boys, how is it possible that they can free themselves more quickly from these clichés of " princess " and of " wesh » ? Sometimes, I didn't even find benevolence but just the effects of guarding, we make sure that the kid will go to the home or to school, we check that he eats and sleeps well and then that's it! No constructive exchange, the political subject in the making is completely evacuated in the approach that we make with the young person. His awakening, his critical sense, nothing is taken into account and the discourse on school is very negative when it should be complementary; we speak of " special education "but it is neither one nor the other, it is at best guarding, at worst confinement when it is not indoctrination...
You mean that the young person is locked in a kind of " mental ghetto » ?
How not to be lost? Perhaps we should review the content of the training of educators, psychologists, social workers, etc., review everything and force a common core that takes into account this thirst for learning, this natural porosity of the child, and not use it as a place where we come to put our own ideas. Suggest things, readings, music that do not reach the neighborhoods, explode this closed system. I point out that I have also met wonderful colleagues, open, who gave their all without judging, without imposing their ideas or beliefs, who did not judge a girl wanting to have an abortion or doing occasional prostitution. So people who are involved and more or less healthy in their relationship with young people, I have seen them. But there are also more and more people who have not resolved their neuroses and phobias and who have no place there! I have personally worked with colleagues who refused to interview a young person because he was homosexual, as a right of reserve which is also possible, I think, but which speaks volumes. There was also a young person wandering whose friend wanted to come and greet him, but he had a dog and it was not possible to even get the young person to come to the reception door, because of the dog. The discussion that followed was appalling, the demonization of the animal, its filthiness described with disgust, a form of paranoid belief.
There is also a sacralization of certain customs: If a mother believes in spirits or maraboutage, of course this must be taken into account in the explanation of what her child is going through as difficulties, but often my colleagues only keep this angle of approach, and some even have a fearful respect and do not even want to introduce another angle of approach that could enlighten, enrich or modulate the superstitious point of view. In fact, for some there is an untouchability that is confused with respect for others. What work can be possible if we hesitate to discuss the child's real problems?
They have no way out?
There are also real encounters that take place for these kids, I was able to work in contact with psychologists who were very much into discussion and had a way of approaching the distress of young people without locking them up or reducing them to their skin color or their religious beliefs, as many educators do by valuing a so-called " pious » even if the practicing father beats her up regularly in the name of precisely this belief which would require not having a social life or associating with boys. Because there is that too, colleagues who murmur in a form of respect when speaking of a young woman who is a believer with a veil, as if we were in a church, what message does that send to other teenage girls? Where is the distance, the freedom of thought in general? Like this colleague who forbade a teenager from swearing because it offends, with her finger pointed in the air. We should question neutrality, and external signs but also and above all the ideas that can be conveyed depending on the colleague who works.
Otherwise, I have also seen social workers who were struggling to ensure that young people follow through with their choice to have an abortion, and sometimes it is really not easy to deal with the pressure from certain colleagues on this type of choice... For me there are two concerns: training and the duty of reserve. If we do not have a strong and common foundation at this level, the population of the neighborhoods can find themselves faced with professionals who in fact pour out their ideas or turn their work into an ideological hunting ground.
In any case, in homes there are more and more " acting as » and night educators are replaced by watchmen, who have no training and are sometimes surprisingly lax. I have heard from colleagues the story of absurd situations, with a watchman smoking his joint while upstairs it was completely freewheeling, with assaults, semi-lynching " for a laugh » but with real blows, and once a young girl came to tell us that when she arrived at the emergency shelter, she was already being asked to perform fellatio; some Child Welfare hotels also have deplorable, completely unsafe supervision.
So everything you say is known in the community?
There are plenty of anecdotes but very few colleagues talk about them. And this young girl sent to Child Welfare, via an association where I worked, and who comes back a few weeks later saying that the night watchman knocked on her door to ask her for a blowjob (according to her he was fired).
In short, social services and associations offer what they can, but between speeches of the type " indigenous » (" "Don't do anything at school, you can't escape your condition and even if you do escape it you will never be accepted as a white person,"etc.) or the appalling laxity that installs the young person in a non-constructive and impoverishing idleness, there is much to say… The problem also is the heads of department, the directors etc, and the framework or the non-framework that they pose. I once worked with a psychologist who mentioned the fact that she had reported one of her colleagues for inappropriate remarks, the director allegedly told her: " "He was racist against white people again?" but there was no follow-up. It should be noted that some heads of department or directors at a higher level do not at all view the speech with a bad eye. indigenist "Last year there was a much-discussed conference, supported by Stéphane Eudier [general director of the association "Sauvegarde 93" — see following note.] and organized by the association Backup 93[2]. The presence of a " indigenous » known (Saïd Bouamama[3] ) was prevented because her arrival had been leaked before the conference. In the end, I saw very few colleagues react when there were militant speeches " decolonial » casually thrown out, during meetings or during cigarette breaks, and clearly it was out of fear of unrest and a desire to maintain a sort of artificial peace on a daily basis. But there are sometimes reactions all the same, as for this conference with Saïd Bouamama: I witnessed the anger of rare colleagues who managed to discreetly pass the information on to outside the Sauvegarde 93 community, so that it would make noise, that the media would talk about it, that people would mobilize against it... In any case, since debate is impossible, that's almost all that remains: collect information, make it known and hope that it will finally open eyes to the intellectual and activist state of certain teams. On the other side in this affair, apparently everyone has joined forces to defend S. Bouamama, and Stéphane Eudier is said to have sent an internal letter to reiterate his support for holding this conference as it was initially planned. I also have colleagues who act as educators representing associations in high schools and colleges without any control being exercised over what they say and convey as thoughts.
They are not asked where they are speaking from, there is no control or written text before the interventions, the youth, instead of being caught up in multiple discourses, finds itself surrounded by the same single-thought discourses held by the ideologues to whom it is delivered.
How do you manage to hold on?
When we don't think the same, we cling either to a colleague, very rare who thinks like you, or to ethics in our work, trying to propose in the discourse a way out for young people who are surrounded by ideology, who are not offered anything different from what they have at home and in the neighborhood (rap, comics on rap, books on hip-hop) or else obsolete content, old magazines from more than 10 years ago lying around between two comics with missing pages, and when they can go on the Internet in a supervised way, they immerse themselves in the music they like without anything enriching their universe. There is a lack of real joint work to think about the content of what we can offer to the teenager in crisis. Neither in homes, nor in associations, nor in government services is this fundamental question addressed.
In fact, babysitting seems to be enough and despite the people who commit themselves ethically without doing their little proselytism, there is ultimately widespread, from what I have seen, a little comfort, a hum or a series of indoctrinating remarks and a great difficulty in coming to bring other sources of inspiration, like this book on Van Gogh which had been tolerated but reluctantly by the majority of the team of a reception center. As if culture, open-mindedness were not fundamental. If the kid does not find outside his home something to nourish his mind differently, where will he find it? If the staff is not trained, or if it is part of an ideology and if nothing comes to counterbalance all that, apart from the apathy of colleagues who clearly do not give a damn and ideologues of all stripes, the kid is not going to encounter much.
You must not be the only one in your situation?
I was also shocked by the rate of absenteeism and illness among my colleagues. I come from the North, I have been living in the Paris suburbs for over 15 years and I have never seen such a frequency in what I call abuse. Moreover, some colleagues do not hesitate to display this mentality, I do not really know how to say it... profit. As I was telling you, there are more and more opportunists in this environment; basically it's: we take advantage and let the others sort it out, there is no overview and no civic involvement. These are weak postures, obsessed with finding the best way to do nothing. If we can take breaks, we take breaks for as long as possible, and we don't care if the workload is distributed among colleagues. These are the mentalities of petty civil servants who don't have team spirit, and I'm not talking about those colleagues who have their noses glued to their cell phones almost all day long. There is also real pain, exhausted colleagues, too much tension in everyday life with young people and in teamwork, the impression that nothing is going to solve social problems, the observation that aggression is increasing, both with some colleagues and with young people, a kind of generalized disarray where those who suffer the most are those who had an ideal and real motivation; while other colleagues seem as comfortable as fish in water, with this mentality that makes them take what they can where they can, and I am also talking about the common petty thefts, sometimes under my nose: reams of paper, frozen food intended for young people, packets of sugar, speakers, unused computers, fans, computer mice, sometimes small pieces of furniture put in a corner or supposed orders for educational material, a camera for example, and then we look everywhere for it, it has disappeared, etc.
What is needed, first and foremost, for these young people?
Over the last 15 years, places of protection should have multiplied in cities, even in their remote areas (small police stations, shelters, secure places open 24/24, neutral associations with competent personnel, etc.) and real parental, social and academic education should reintroduce this " the other my fellow, your body, my body".
Providing places for a break and a night-time reception would allow naive or already damaged girls to come and take refuge in the event of running away or a fit of anger, because hanging around outside is bodily suicide: they become fluorescent prey on which the little bastard pounces, for whom they represent nothing more than a series of orifices that can be exploited at will.
How do you see the evolution of these territories in the years to come?
As for the future, I don't know how things will evolve. For my part, I will still do replacements for a few years, always keeping a low profile, and then I will stop. It is too hard and there are few resources in place, no clear educational project, no control of the associations with which there is a partnership, such as the association Dream'Elles (Samia Hathroubi, Coexist et Lallab
[4]fully, support and close to T. Ramadan, etc.) who flooded Seine-Saint-Denis with flyers looking for young girls to train in their non-mixed workshops. There is no minimal unity in practices, no clear aims, a tacit but unspoken rejection of contributions such as that of secularism which is often spoken of as a scourge or an imposture, no freedom of speech unless one has the current dominant discourse. The Sud-Collectivités Territoriales union, moreover, which offers local government officials very informal training " decolonial », allows an entry of speeches " indigenous people », it ticks all the boxes, including inclusive writing. There is a " indigenous » like Farid Benaï, close to S. Bouamama, who is offering himself as a FO union delegate in an association, I have had professional emails from colleagues who relayed the Bondy blog and articles from Freed which offered a platform to the " racialism ", valuing him, justifying him and excusing him. I don't see how a young colleague can escape what looks like the influence of a dominant discourse. There are also security aberrations: at the Bobigny courthouse for example, if you have a professional card, from Child Welfare for example, you are entitled to a fast-track, that is to say that you are neither searched nor checked. When you know the activism that exists in Seine Saint-Denis, you realize how open a door that can be.
There are neither the wills nor the tools, and the positions of " acting as » may offer work without high qualifications (a form ofuberisation positions in contact with a young population which requires a framework, specific skills and knowledge, intelligence and kindness) but often these poorly trained personnel just do guarding and even then...
It is often said that we have to wait for the breakdown to wake up. But between "decolonial" indoctrination, the promotion of political bigotry and the cult of anti-fraternity, which remain almost the only separatist compasses offered to kids, it is already here. There is an urgent need to finally understand and limit the spread and impact of certain speeches hammered into children, as I have seen. Otherwise, for me, it is a failure to assist a mind and body in danger.
