Restless Youth

Photograph forTIME by ALEXANDRA BOULAT / VII

THE MEDIATOR: Traore goes looking for trouble in Clichy-sous-Bois — but when he finds it, he tries to calm things down

It's a damp, cold November night in the run-down Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. The rioting that has consumed France for over two weeks began here, but tonight things are relatively calm. No cars are burning; no fire fighters are hosing down flaming Dumpsters; no gangs of hooded youths prowl the streets. Police vans cruise slowly along the narrow roads, but all they encounter is two young men in a heated argument outside one of the dilapidated high-rise apartment blocks. "They're talking about deporting immigrants!" shouts Paul, who moved to Clichy-sous-Bois from Congo when he was 2. "We aren't immigrants! We're French!"...

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