The "Bad Boys" and the War Business

Sanda Nicola, the special reporter of Realitatea TV in Paris, tells in a special correspondence about her midnight meeting with the "bad boys" in the suburbs that fire up cars.

Sanda Nicola, the special reporter of Realitatea TV in Paris, tells in a special correspondence about her midnight meeting with the "bad boys" in the suburbs that fire up cars.

Jamal is 25 and lives in Aulnay-sous-Bois. He says he has never fired up anything, he is a "mediator". He has pretty nice clothes, he is polite, speaks a little English and drives a white Renault made in the 80s. He goes to the hotels with journalists and sets up appointments. He behaves like a "guide" in the suburbs for the reporters that would give parts of their bodies just to see the minor rebels preparing the Molotovs. Of course there is a price for all this. I have set an appointment with him at 11 o’clock in the evening. After a quarter of an hour of waiting, I called him on his cell. He didn’t answer, and at 23:35 I thought he would never come.

WAITING Maite, the Tele 5 (Spain) correspondent, is in a car parked right across the street from us and she is together with her Cambodian camera operator. After a quick glance, Maite comes down and comes towards me. "Are you supposed to meet a guide here?" I tell her I am, with Jamal. She was also supposed to meet a guide and his name, as she knew it, was Steve. We check the phone numbers and see they do not coincide. We agree that if they are indeed two different people and if at least one of them comes to the meeting we will both go with that guide.

STEVE WAS THE FIRST TO ARRIVE In a quite new Peugeot, Steve looks attentively to us and asks 1,000 euros. Maite protests and tries to negotiate. In the meantime, Jamal appears, parks his car and jumps on our backseat. "Let’s go, a Police patrol!" I call Maite and tell her to follow us. Somewhere between the blocks, Jamal asks us to stop and calls us both to talk about the money. He agrees to help if we give him 150 euros each. This is because we are from Romania and Spain, respectively, because he had asked 500 euros to the BBC reporters.

We go to the ghetto. On the way, he tells me more than once to act natural and not to be afraid of anything. "they want to speak, they asked me to bring you, so I think they won’t harm you", Jamal encouraged us.

In a small patio, somewhere between garbage cans and junk, we see 10 noisy punks. They fool around and sing some sort of hip-hop and I understand it is about "excitation" and "alcohol". With a wry smile on her face, Maite tells me to go in.

We are in front of a barred gate, which is padlocked and chained. A small guy, with the hood on his head and with a foulard on his face, opens the gate as much as the chain allows it and signals us to hurry in. Inside, a pestilential smell, walls with graffiti and curses addressed to the police. The guys whistle enchanted of the fact that Jamal had brought two women.

They are all children, except two or three of them that are aged over 20. One of them is muffled and covers his face all the time. In the same time, there are others that want to look very well for the camera. They put themselves on the map and say their opinions about anything. I feel like some of the texts have been prepared before, because, even if I didn’t ask anything about Sarkozy, they start threatening the Minister of Internal Affairs and giving a detailed description of the things they would do to him.

THE CONTACT I can’t help myself: "Are you the real rebels that fire up schools and cars?". Salim admits that he isn’t, "but all these guys around me have taken part in the attacks". "this guy over here was the fire-starter at the Police Station and at Renault", and he shows me Omar. Omar is as black as he can be, he is 19, has a hood on his head and the sweater’s collar up to above his nose. I can only see his eyes. Big and expressive. There is nothing frightening in his look. I ask him if he plans to fire anything tonight. After a moment of thinking, he decides: "Not tonight, madam!"

A little more quiet, Yussef sits back and watches. His clothes look good, he is freshly shaved and looks very calm. I can’t really decide about his position in the "gang", but I can feel he’s dominating the others. When the "muffled" guy hits my microphone, as a sign that he doesn’t want to talk, Yussef tells him that it is not right. "Talk to her"!, are his authoritarian words and the "muffled" guy did just that.

THE SHOW. Yussef tells me he is studies Economical Sciences and he even has a student identity card. He is 22 and says he has an Algerian soul and a French mind. He wants to become a commerce specialist. He is doing decently, he doesn’t take part in the firings, but he doesn’t blame his friends either. "France has no mercy for them, why should they have mercy for France?", are the student’s passionate words. In the background, the muffled guy ransacks junk and strikes the garbage cans with fury. I bet this is only for the camera!

We tell Jamal this is enough and go out through the gate where we came in. I am thinking the same thing as Maite. Are the rebels we just met "authentic"? We bring Jamal back to the place where he had parked his car and pay him for his services. He comes back and wants me to lower the window. "How much will you pay to show you to the ducts to see guns, real Kalashnikovs?" I tell him I don’t have any more money. "If you get 150 more, call me tomorrow at about 4 o’clock! Now leave quickly ‘cause the cops are coming!", and he disappeared.

I had just sent the images with the "rebels" in the country and I was having a cup of coffee in the lobby of the same hotel in Aulnay-sous-Bois. At the table next to me, a team of reporters from Slovenia were talking about some guy, Jamal, who was late. When I left, I passed by their table and told them not to worry, "Jamal is always late. Amazed, they asked me about Jamal. I told them the short story and not to give him more than 150 euros.