Barbès | Histoire d’un Quartier d’Immigrés

Barbès est un quartier cosmopolite de Paris sur lequel nous projetons toutes sortes de désirs et de fantasmes. Les trajectoires individuelles et collectives de ses habitants nous font découvrir un lieu hanté par les combats politiques, sociaux et religieux qui s’y sont déroulés. En explorant les batailles de Barbès, ce documentaire propose un nouvel éclairage sur les fractures de la société française et son rapport aux immigrés.

Réalisateur : Lydie Marlin et Andres Criscaut

It’s a little corner of the north of Paris, appreciated by migratory birds. Wedged between Montmartre and the Bois Ferrés of the Gare du Nord, Barbès is a cosmopolitan crossroads that concentrates many of the problems of working-class neighborhoods. The media image of a ghetto, excessive surveillance of its population. The regular influx of refugees and the public expression of religious practices. Could these elements, so singular, not be the legacy of a history that has not yet been written? Barbès was built with the different waves of migration that France has experienced, but above all was a unique battlefield. In its kind, the epicenter of the Algerian War in mainland France. The main theatre of the struggle of undocumented immigrants, but also the bridgehead of a certain fantasy of Muslim invasion. These three episodes have marked the migration policies of the last 60 years and have changed the mentalities of many French people. For us, who settled here 7 years ago, Barbès is a big puzzle. We appealed to the memory of the inhabitants, to help us put it back together. These are the battles of Barbès. Every time we return to Barbès, It’s like a punch. We are stunned by the crowd and the shouts of the street vendors. Above all, there are these sirens that constantly remind us that the neighborhood is under tension. It has also been labeled. “first priority security zone in Paris”. Where does this stigma that doesn’t say its name come from? To answer this question, Perhaps we need to go back to the darkest period that the neighborhood has known, when the Algerian war arrived in Paris. Few elders dare to speak about it directly. This is our corner. Oh yes, It’s true. We’ll think about it carefully. On the new benches of the City of Paris. Exactly. How are you. How are you. How are you. You have arrived in Algeria. You arrived in Algeria and how are you ending up? Think NOW. Yes. Yes, Well, that’s good. Me, is to understand that others, That. You want nationality, What. Eh Yes, that’s it, Yes. Me too, I try. There is an advanced policy. There are many who don’t know this. When we had the addiction, They gave us a choice. Anyone who remains French is considered an anarchist. A traitor. And whoever wants Algerian nationality, He must take nationality. SO, when we have family there and then we made a step-by-step migration, They didn’t count on me reaching retirement this far. Before, we do, maybe next year. I was leaving, maybe next year i do that. But when you get to 50, to start a career in our country, It was too late. So, the majority of people, They stayed like that. While after the 90s… The elderly, between them, do not speak of the war of Zion. They talk about Algeria, today. They will talk about the life they lead now, but they are not going to talk about the Algerian Guard. It’s too taboo. The memory of the Algerian guard, You look at any character today, when he says hello to a policeman, He says Hello, Chief. This is already very revealing. They never left us, it never left them. They are haunted by domination. It is an injury that cannot be thought about, It’s not true. She is there, she is still alive. As soon as we hear, as soon as they hear a siren, they look at the characters, They are still traumatized today, I think so. We have a big problem, It’s that parents don’t talk to their children. This is what we experienced, so much they suffered, and they are afraid of marking their child, and that their kid leaves with a certain hatred. So we don’t talk about that. It’s very rare that you’ll see a dad, like my dad say to his son, You know, during the war, he will say, You know, During the war it was hard, it was necessary to work. They will always encourage them in the way of going to work, to remain within the standards and the rules, But tell them this is what we suffered, this is what they did to us, That’s what it was. We never talk about that. It wasn’t my father who told me, It was rather my mother who told me how my father struggled, how could my father not tell us about this, he was so hurt by it, so much so that it is a wound that is there, and which is not communicated to descendants. These flags, so proudly displayed, are they today empty of blood Their presence was nevertheless the symbol of the struggle for the independence of Algeria, led by the National Liberation Front, the FNM, from 1954. A major episode of this nameless war took place here, in these furnished cafe-hotels, whose atmosphere hasn’t changed much since then. It is a cafe that has a history that dates back the beginning of immigration. In fact, since the immigrants who came from Algeria, mainly from Kabylie, and more particularly from my region, came. Mostly with the drop of gold. And they were among the first to take on business assets. And the Business Fund? The most designated, It’s coffee. Cafe-restaurant, hotel, Which therefore allows immigrants to be welcomed, in a way, and to allow them to also group together by region of origin. My father, when he first arrived, in the 1940s, here in France, He did business, street trading. And it is gradually, by joining forces with a colleague from the village, moreover, that they have acquired one or two hotels. It was a cafe, It was a coffee. phenomenon, like most cafes. You couldn’t be Algerian living in France. Not involved in the Algerian War. It was not possible. Or we were for independence, or we were not for independence. SO, the bulk of the people were for independence, whether they want it or not. Each of the hotels, each of the living spaces. So that, not only here, but absolutely everywhere. People were organized, The FLN organized immigration. Already, at the time, The neighborhood was the epicenter of national issues. This dirty war, as she is nicknamed, Would it not have profoundly changed the relationship between the inhabitants of Barbès and the institutions? We discovered that just a stone’s throw from our home, The state had discreetly created a military post to control North African immigrants. Algerian soldiers, often called “Harki of Paris”, had thus been recruited to infiltrate their compatriots close to the FLN. From that moment on, The climate of civil war has intensified in the neighborhood. Because it’s always the same, Abbas. In the evening, it’s a 27th and the two at Poil and you were with my basket. And then Agou d’Or Street. It was at 28, we had come, if it comes back to me now, in this neighborhood, because the 18th arrondissement was a region. FLN, following the FLN division, one of the smallest and with the highest concentration of population. So it had a symbolic, particular aspect. The FLN had succeeded in establishing in France, and here in particular, a state within a state. I realized that 80% The funding for what we were fighting in Algeria came from here. I couldn’t choose the others. An Innu came to my village, They organized 22 peasants who had done nothing. I couldn’t choose the other side, it was not possible. Fathers who had the 6, 7, 8 children. So I couldn’t choose, it’s gone there, whatever his intention. I couldn’t. I saw the cruelty of these people. I say no, because France, anyway, over there, was not defended. SO, all my uncles, They made the French army, I don’t have them. Only people of the same origin as the Algerians, and speaking Arabic, by definition, or the Kabyle, could give us a slightly more accurate idea of what the Algerian population thought. In France. The idea was, with its staff, to have a double presence. A conspicuous presence that consisted of patrolling in uniform, which did not have much military use, but which was spectacular. So there was an aspect of wanting to demonstrate that Muslims, young people, healthy, engaged in a conspicuous manner alongside. And then, next to it, the same or others, spread to all places frequented by Muslims, especially Algerian coffees, There were some everywhere, and go there, drink tea at the sale, discuss, listen to what people were saying and bring us information. I lived as a career officer in uniform. I was put in Paris in civilian clothes with fake police officers. We didn’t want to admit that they were soldiers. My father’s picture on this newspaper below, It says in the warehouse: “This one has just killed or stolen.” He will be punished, But the North African problem in France will not be resolved for all that.” Ah, there, there! It surprised us because my father is not a gangster. And there, every week in Paris… Police are carrying out raids to remove suspicious North African items. But wouldn’t it be better to tackle the problem at its root and stop immigration? The Harkis had machine guns, They clearly showed that they were there. What I remember, small, it was arrests, people who have jostled, that they were handcuffed in the bus and then taken away. We were a little afraid of them because they were not gentle with the Algerians. For them, the harkis, It was in France, they had a uniform, they had some power. Sometimes, They used this power on their brothers. SO, we stayed quite far away from them. 28, rue de la Goutte d’Or was a place where quite a few people got… Beaten up by the police, by the harkis. As soon as we saw the police arriving, the coaches, with people who were brought down and who we didn’t necessarily see come back up. So, we know, the neighborhood, Everyone in the neighborhood knows what was going on in that place. When we went down there, we didn’t necessarily come back right away. There is no never had a killer-killer, It’s an invention. They are really making up a fake story, This is not true. It seems so to me, because I was there. Anyway, when someone was arrested, he could tell you, We, we didn’t do it. I was an intelligence officer in addition to my other duties, and I had the privilege of doing interrogations. So, I am well placed to talk to you about torture. Our soldiers were forbidden to interrogate anyone. In my opinion, intelligence officer, the questioning, It’s a kind of verbal joust. You have to enter with a kind of complicity with the person you are questioning. And let him understand, as I told you, that he is asked to furnish boxes. I don’t know if I’m clear. It’s a funny sport. I admit that this is not what I was taught in cavalry schools. It’s not always this beautiful here. No. No, It depends on the ages. It’s brand new, too. Yes, Yes. Barbesque It was delicate, it was really open war. There are certain streets here that the cops can’t pass. The FLN at the bar told me that you have to, you have to go back to France because we need you in France. And I arrived here on February 11, 1960. And then, I carried messages, I carried envelopes to big bosses, But I don’t know them. These leaders. I have to give it to someone… Ah, it’s for sure! I have to give someone the envelope. A pillar of resourcefulness, I don’t care. At my house, When I remember what I did, I call myself all the names under the sun. And I cry alone. Because I threw a grenade at a police commissioner. Luckily that grenade didn’t explode. And there, the cops, They took me. Who gave you the grenade? I say, I found her on the ground. Why are you being thrown at the commissioner? I say, because we are at war. Because the French army, because it is burning there in Adheria. Houses, shops and everything. That’s where they started, Dad’s police, started to torture me. They took out my teeth one by one to say that they gave me the grenade. I was in torture for three months. And since I hadn’t said anything, I was sentenced to death. I was sentenced to death in April. And in July, It was the end of the war. All the prisons were seen in the papers. Finally, They let us down. In the streets of Barbès, We have not found any commemorative plaque of this tragic episode. And little known in the history of France. 4,000 Algerian deaths in mainland France alone. Around the table, Father and son did not speak. Despite this, a transmission of the order of the unspeakable took place. So during the day, we’re still not considered French from the moment we don’t look French. That’s tragic. But me, as a French person of Assyrian origin, I I would find it easier to talk to my children about what my father was going through than about racism. I still suffered it today. because it might slow down their motivation. Every time they encounter a small obstacle, they’ll say “Oh yeah, puree, My father experienced this 50 years ago, It’s still like that. I would tell them, “This is what your grandfather went through.” But I’m not going to tell them, “This is what I experienced.” Actually, we do the same thing again. There, we don’t talk about war, but we are talking about social evolution. I I’m getting by day by day, I am a photographer, I have been a photographer for over ten years. Today, I’m not telling you that I get checked as much as a young person sitting on a bench, you see. But I come from there. And this oppression, I lived it and I know it. You see And when it’s free, It bothers me. But like when a young person provokes a police officer for no reason, It bothers me too. You’re a little clown, You You’re a little clown, will defend people’s teams, You Perhaps for passersby, for people who come from elsewhere, or for cops, When they come and they go to see just smoke, a spliff, It’s just going to be some slacker smoking his spliff. While, 20 minutes later, he’s going to go to work. SO, No, It’s not just glands. On the essence, you have maybe 20-30 glandular ones. But after, you have guys who work in the evening, so they are here, posed, the day, they spend time with their friends, they have debates about football, It’s the World Cup right now, So they have debates about football, and you have plenty of them who are delivery people. They take their little bike, their little bike, they go around Paname, they deliver from… Today, If there are people eating, It’s thanks to guys like that. They take their bikes, their scooter, they come, they do it to you. Is a young person from here different from a young person from another part of Paris? No. You go to the 16th or to chic neighborhoods, I have the impression that young people who have a golden spoon in their mouth, They slack off more than not. We probably see police checks here more frequently than elsewhere. It is also because Barbès continues to be a trading hub, with all kinds of trafficking, And where the main waves of immigration that France has experienced still intersect. In the 50s, we spoke of the golden drop, like the Medina of Paris. Since the 70s, we are talking about the Little Mali of the Africans of Château-Côme. I really chose to settle in the neighborhood because it was both a very Parisian neighborhood, and at the same time a very cosmopolitan neighborhood, and also a popular neighborhood. The street, It is not just a space to go from one point to another, to move around, according to the good logic of Le Corbusier, But it’s a space where you can… be, you can stand and therefore you can speak, chat, Why not sit down and why not? Trade on the street. And that’s also what creates this difference in visibility. My sister, For example, she comes from the provinces, she arrives in Châteaurouge, she says “Ah, but there are a lot of black people in Châteaurouge.” I said to him, “Yes, there are black people in Châteaurouge, but look, gradually, look at, there are West Indians, there are people from West Africa, we recognize them because they are dressed in that way, there are Muslims, etc. ” And there are even indirect blacks. After West Africans and Asians, The latest arrivals are refugees from Sudan, from Eritrea or Somalia. We often come across them around the Saint-Bernard church. Why this attraction of the poorest to the neighborhood? Why is the current migration crisis resonating so strongly here? No doubt thanks to a very dense network of supportive citizens and a greater number of associations than in any other part of Paris. You have a pavilion, YOU You have a pavilion First, it was a bit of a person. We saw the dog of Paris. He died in 1915. He made a pavement. There is a tradition of social struggle around immigration here. Anti-racism, right to housing and asylum, With, as a highlight, the undocumented immigrants of Saint-Bernard who have established the myth of a welcoming district. It was by occupying this famous church, with the support of the residents, that 300 Africans in an irregular situation had triggered an unprecedented wave of regularization in France. Probably, Today’s asylum seekers are following the same paths of solidarity that were laid out more than 20 years ago. I can’t accept, Me, that there are people sleeping outside, who constrain themselves like dogs, even worse than dogs. They are not even given enough water. You see what I mean? Today, The neighborhood remains a truly welcoming neighborhood. Me, I know lots of people in the Goutte d’Or district who are going to host people. Good, one need only look at the parish, there, They continue to welcome, But there are plenty of people who open their doors. To help people do some laundry or take a shower, etc. In my opinion, We must give a gold medal to the Goudor district. We think, eh ? These are neighborhoods where there has been an important community life, where there is also a tradition of resistance and struggle, which has always existed, even if only when there was the desire, in the 80s of Chirac to destroy the district, to make it a neighborhood… A little high, completely different, There were, however, significant struggles to maintain the neighborhood’s multicultural and popular character. And that, it was important, we won on that. The men and women of this neighborhood knew how to mobilize. This one, It… Oh yes, This is the Journal of the Undocumented Immigrants of Saint-Bernard. It is indeed a newspaper. See We can say we won. That’s the whole thing. That’s 80,000 regularizations, 5,000, 5,000 regularizations. That’s You see that, that’s in the slide, that’s the strikers. We took chairs to block the door. They took a gas can to pump us inside. Thank you. So, It’s because as they broke, We block them with chairs. If there is a train, we mount it like this. Inside the church, The chairs serve as barricades while Father Poindé celebrates Mass. The doors of the Church are broken down with sledgehammers, the barricades are overturned, The mobile gendarmes enter the church. If you lived as a paper incense burner, he will leave traces on you. It comes back to me like a movie. How I went out on the first day to go and wrestle, to get my papers, all the galleys, leak strikes I saw to get this. I am of Mauritanian origin. I left my native village at the age of 22. I spent two years in my capital, Nouakchott. And after two years, I went to Libya. And I came through Italy. I returned to France at the age of 24. My first boss, It was a company that was cleaning up. I left with a refugee, the asylum I was asking for, and there you have it, I started working. Six months later, They no longer renew my political asylum. It was the State that took these papers away from us. We were undocumented. So, I was there, I slept here with my feet and over there with Berkey and Amadi Camara. And That was the fight that was there, from the first days we returned and the strikers at the end. And that was there. 10 people. Doctors of the world, I remember, they come, they put their machines that make the tensions, all that, They put them there. And finally, They said, A human being can live for two months. SO, They warned the government to be careful. 52 days, It has become serious. Eight days missing two months, France could have a death because of a piece of paper. Widely publicized, This event remains etched in the collective memory. It also gave birth to a national coordination which still fights for the regularization of all undocumented immigrants. Since the Church was occupied Saint Bernard, it’s like for me, We reached the Goudor district, we won the fight. Because thanks to this district which was able to mobilize all of France, everyone gathered around us. To say that they came to take refuge in our neighborhood, we’re not going to let you spy them. All the time, I think there was strong support from the neighborhood. I think the priest summed it up well when he said, In my opinion, said the priest, the issue of migrants, It was previously a theoretical question. NOW, migrants, They have a name, they have a story, they have faces. And I believe that including in the neighborhood, It was true. And there were connections, friendships that were created. And I believe that the Goutte d’Or district, It’s not for nothing that we see undocumented immigrants arriving. We see refugees arriving. It’s not just at the chapel, but the drop of gold is marked by this story. Once again, Wouldn’t the neighborhood have changed the face of France a little? At a minimum, he moved our consciences. So, before Saint Bernard, we were talking about illegal immigrants. Today, they are undocumented immigrants, and even sometimes undocumented workers, which illustrate this paradigm shift. Wrestling has evolved a lot. And Saint Bernard allowed undocumented immigrants to organize themselves. And Saint Bernard allowed the undocumented immigrants to fight underground. Today, after 20 years of Saint Bernard, the struggle continues. It’s like he said earlier, comrades, The struggle continued. For each issue related to immigration, Barbès’ millefeuille seems to react with one voice, as if activism erased differences. However, in daily life, Building connections with our neighbors is a mutual effort. How to avoid introspection and communitarianism There is traffic between the people who live in the neighborhood, who are foreigners, people who live in the neighborhood, who are of foreign origin, and the people who live in the neighborhood, who are of French origin. I wouldn’t say there’s any mixing, We must not exaggerate either, there is no need for naivety, But I would say that people are in contact with each other and it’s not tense. We are not in a place where one community would be against another community. This is where you see that there isn’t this communitarian confinement that we might find in other capitals of the world. I don’t know, if you are Arab, you will eat Arabic, consume Arabic, pray in Arabic, All. There, there is more traffic. For example, if you see the exit of the mosque on Stephanson Street, You will see Arabs and you will see Sahelian Africans who are Muslims. You on Fridays? We are witnessing a real pilgrimage of Muslims on our doorstep. They go to the new mosque in the neighborhood, far from the one that was in front of our house seven years ago. At the time, the days of great prayer… We were surprised to find that in our secular country, we come to use the street for a religious practice, whatever it may be. But we just got on with it. like the other residents of the neighborhood, until Marine Le Pen gets her act together. And then there were prayers in the public street. First, it was Rumi-Ra, And now there is 10 or 15 places where, on a regular basis, A number of people come to grab it. The territories. I’m sorry, But for those who like to talk a lot about World War II, if it is a question of talking about occupation, we could talk about it, for the moment. Once again, Barbès was made a scapegoat. We weren’t the only ones affected. The lack of places of worship for Muslims was also a national problem. We discovered that our neighborhood might be able to answer it. Paradoxically, To find a more spacious place, The small mosque opposite our house had to be destroyed. When we arrived at this time, here, It was a world full of people. People waiting for prayer, people who were waiting for their meeting, people coming out from everywhere. It was a place of life, let’s say, family, Because there, sometimes baptisms took place, days of condolences, prayers on the hands. It was a place of life. We were one of the most popular mosques, even compared to… At the Paris mosque, because we were in a working-class neighborhood. We had more people than the mosque in Paris, Fridays. It was the place where, when people came to do their shopping, their purchases and everything, They met at the mosque. So we had not only the local residents, but we had more or less other people who came from elsewhere who met here. But with the evolution, and then with the strong increase of Muslims, we came to occupy, I don’t know, Polonceau Street, Rue des Poissonniers and come almost to the Sainte-Rouge metro station here. The town hall was forced to send us security agents to try to sort things out a bit, because we had to close the street. Street prayer, we did it for a long time, we did it for a very long time, There was no problem. It lasted about ten years. Every Friday, in this district of Paris, Hundreds of worshippers pray in the street. But on September 16th, the law will prohibit it. So, in exchange, The State provided a new place of prayer, located not far from there. This former military barracks, abandoned for 4 years, It was renovated this summer. There were mosques that were opened, Well, that’s good. Because of his scandal, of his provocation, Finally, there emerged a greater respect for freedom of worship. So here it is, I’ll take that back. Yes, indeed, There are no more carpets in the street, Mirat, so we could say good. We lost the exotic side, But can we consider praying in the street to be dignified? No, it’s for lack of anything better, So. Now there is a decent mosque in the neighborhood, and there you go, that’s very good. So, this kind of desire to exploit the neighborhood, the neighborhood. It is strong, You can’t fold it into a little piece of paper and say, “There, the golden drop, it’s the prayer of the streets.” Yes, well, that’s it, it’s no longer street prayer. At first, we practiced, There really wasn’t any… So, you weren’t pointed at or anything, Are you Muslim or not? We practiced, we were leaving, we were in the crowd like that. There were no feelings of hostility. The feelings of hostility began to come after, if not at the beginning. Pardon, but the barracks, In fact, the barracks. It’s temporary. Yes, The barracks are still temporary. Because it’s certain that one day or another, we don’t know when, but it’s something that will disappear. So we will have to find the basic support, For example, so that we can find our forest. Although there is the barracks mosque, It doesn’t solve the lack. Because there are many people who cannot get to the barracks. There are elderly people who cannot go there. SO, there is always the need, It is felt to have a mosque in the center. A mosque, it is for all the invisibility of France. But you’re going there anyway. I don’t go there at all anymore. No, this for me, It is not a mosque. There are many who say that. There are many who say that. There are many who say that. Maybe not even haram to pray. We say provisionally, we will give you another place so as not to use the word barracks, Because until now, You see, we don’t say a mosque, we say a barracks. This is a big problem. Praying in a barracks. For Muslims who said terrorist, We’re all soldiers here. You should know that when the barracks door, since we are going to stay within these terms, she closes, You have 5,000 people who are trapped outside and about 3,000 people who are trapped inside. So we are in the street, in another dome, you see, farm. But people taken outside, it’s not enough. This mosque barracks, loaned by the State, does not satisfy everyone. But a balance has been found regarding the lack of places of worship. All the more so since the Institute of Islamic Cultures opened its doors at the same time. This cultural center of the Paris City Hall also houses a prayer room. But can the secular institutions of the Republic properly respond to the religious needs of a part of the population? In any case, The Institute of Islamic Cultures is unique in its kind, and several European cities are closely following this model. What is interesting about the Institute of Islamic Cultures, It is this attempt to superimpose cultural aspects, from the restaurant, of this space which was dedicated to worship. So I would say that, It’s not so bad. On the other hand, I would say that unfortunately, It’s not aimed at the Muslims in the neighborhood. In my opinion, the cultural target, it is completely above ground, I would say. Because the Muslim population of the neighborhood, she is of working-class origin, And that when you are of working-class origin, you don’t go to the museum. You are in the other target. Far from these debates on social differences, cultural or religious, There is a unique place, where, with all the inhabitants of Barbès, we meet regularly. A place where, for once, living together takes on its full meaning. The sheet we have here, people come to meet up with each other, to party, feel good and share a moment. It is true that it is a symbolic place, This is the first mosque in the neighborhood. We remain somewhat in the same state of mind, except we take away the worship and it’s just leisure. Me, I wanted to bring pétanque back into the spotlight. Because at the time, we played football, we will say at the top of the shark, because there was a wall, It was called. The demolition, and the old French people were playing pétanque downstairs. And when the ball fell on their ball, we were arguing. It was really the old French, the old racists from back then with the berets and everything. And then, finally, by dint of arguing, We got closer, a little bit, then they taught us how to play pétanque. And we joined the pétanque club. You see that we can fight racism when we get to know each other. We joined, we played pétanque. My brother became French pétanque champion thanks to these old people, who at the beginning, We didn’t love each other because we didn’t give ourselves the means to really know each other. And I wanted to bring back pétanque because it’s something that brings people together. That’s what I took away from this story. Foreigners, undocumented workers, with paper, French, French, Muslims, immigrants, children of immigrants. The pieces of the Barbès puzzle are gradually coming together. We feel like our neighborhood could be, Despite its imperfections, an integration model to follow. Though, for several years, Barbès is indeed changing its face once again. New businesses and a new, more affluent population are driving up property prices. Under the pressure of gentrification that many capitals of the world are undergoing, Will Paris be able to retain its last popular bastion? A new battle is already looming on the horizon.