In this week’s magazine, George Packer writes about the alienated, impoverished communities of the Paris suburbs, or banlieues, and the question (fiercely debated in France since the Charlie Hebdo killings, in January) of whether the neighborhoods are incubators of terrorism. In areas like Department 93, an enclave of Arab and African immigrants northeast of the city, many young people live in the violence-ridden concrete housing projects known as cités, amid joblessness, crime, and profound isolation from the broader French culture. Packer writes, “The psychological distance between the 93 and the Champs-Élysées can feel insuperable.”
For nearly a decade, the Spanish photographer Arnau Bach has been photographing the youth of the 93 for his project “Suburbia.” Originally inspired by the media’s coverage of the _banlieue _riots of 2005, Bach spent long periods of time in the neighborhood between 2006 and 2012; he returned to the area to take photographs for The New Yorker in March of this year. His images capture both the harshness and the vitality of the streets and present a rare portrait of everyday life in a segment of French society that few outsiders dare to examine first-hand.
