"France is about to explode"

French Riots of 2005

x Begoña Piña: Interview with film director Ladj Ly

The filmmaker warns of the unbearable tension that exists in the suburbs of Paris in Los miserables, a film inspired by the riots of 2005 and representing France in the Oscars. Jury Prize in Cannes, these miserable are historical reflection of those of Victor Hugo.

In October 2005, two young Muslims of African origin died while escaping from the French Police in Clichy-sous-Bois, in a banlieue (suburb) of Eastern Paris. It was the origin of some riots that ended up spreading even outside of France. Nicolas Sarkozy, then Interior Minister, called the protesters "scum." The crisis worsened, but the whole world knew the situation of poverty, discrimination and violence that was lived in the outskirts of the city. The time had come for the revolution.

The director LadJ Ly was a direct witness of what was happening in his neighborhood, recorded many images and finally decided, after some work in the field of documentary, to go to fiction to tell the story of the young people of the banlieue. Les Miserables, a film that represents France in the Oscar race and won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Festival, is an incontestable denunciation, a powerful portrait of the suburbs hell and a warning about the almost unbearable tension with the that lives the unprotected population of this rich Europe.

As in Víctor Hugo's novel, the characters in this film live in Montferneuil and, like the 'miserable' people of that time, suffer identical poverty and injustice. "Life, suffering, loneliness, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields that have their own heroes; dark heroes, sometimes larger than illustrious heroes," Victor Hugo wrote and it seems that he had written it for the Hooded youth of this story. A story that Ladj Ly begins with Stéphane's arrival in the Anti-Crime Brigade (B.A.C. in French), where he meets Chris and Gwada. And with them every day, police impunity walks through the streets of this neighborhood of misfortunes. In Public we interview the director of this hard trip to the suburbs:

Last November Paris burned with the protests of the yellow vests, are actions similar to those of the riots of 2005 on which the film is based?

The 2005 inspired us all. I was then 25 years old and now we see the same. It's terrible, but the problems are the same, things have not changed and are not solved. Politicians do nothing.

And cinema is a new voice for all these people?

The cinema is a closed, elitist industry, with very expensive schools and we attend to the principle of the primordial. That is why we create in our neighborhood a collective-school that allows us to create new voices in the cinema among young people.

Do the Miserable tell what the media hide?

Of course. Politicians and the media work together and when they talk about the suburbs they do not control, they are all clichés and attempts to denigrate us. Cinema, as you said, is a new voice that testifies to reality. This is the truth, I live there and I know this story, I know it perfectly.

The director Ladj Ly

In addition to showing reality, what other intention does the film have?

It is a cry of alarm for politicians to start working on solutions. The movie is fair, based on real events from the first minute to the last scene. I have lived it. We want to give voice to our own stories and not to be told by others. Les Miserables is not a value judgment, it is reality.

Is there hope today for those solutions?

I hope so. The film wants to express that, a door open to hope, although the situation is very hard. In the end I think that despite this hardness the solution is possible, but this always happens to get to work and talk about those solutions.

That the film represents France in the race for the Oscar is part of that hope?

Of course it is a very strong, very important message, it is as if they were telling us: "Ok, we have heard you. France has heard you". The Cannes prize is also very important, symbolically it is very important.

But France and other places in the world seem about to revolution ...


 
I can't know, but of course France is about to explode, you can't do much anymore. Yellow vests are ignored, even if they are not the same causes as ours. But do we have to burn all of France to make something happen? Sometimes it is a small flame that makes everything explode. In France it took the French Revolution to change things.

In the case of the suburbs, is there a special disgust for the religious issue?

Yes, in France there is harassment of Muslims, it seems that when you talk about Muslims you are talking about terrorists. I live in a Muslim neighborhood and there are no terrorists. It is a very sensitive problem.

But there is violence and a kind of own system, right?

The standard bearers organize to survive. In Paris there are abandoned neighborhoods thirty years ago and people organize themselves, women lend money to each other ... And there is not as much drug trafficking as the media say.

Returning to the solutions, is integration possible?

Yes, totally, it is possible. It only takes political will, if it is not all a joke, they are making fun of us. You have to make plans to renovate the neighborhoods, create new spaces ...

But instead are these neighborhoods becoming the new enemy?

It is a tendency to add to the whole problem, they put a lot of backpack as soon as the subject comes up. They are dedicated to creating a generality of problems that are not as they are told.

Does that allow them the police impunity that he talks about in the movie?

In the last 20 or 30 years, the majority of cases of violence by the Police have been suffered by blacks and Arabs. Police violence in France is very frequent.

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