Hatouma Diarra doesn’t want to be judged by the clothes she wears, by the religion she follows or, least of all, by where she grew up.
But Diarra, raised by immigrants from Mali in the Paris suburb of Viry-Chatillon, says it’s as if her neighborhood is stamped across her forehead.
“It’s hard to dream when everyone says the place you come from only spawns ‘jihadists, terrorists and delinquents,'” the 21-year-old says. “You end up feeling completely isolated.”
Viry-Chatillon is just one of the many banlieues — heavily immigrant, working class suburbs — dotted around the periphery of the French capital. But its close proximity to Grigny has made the neighborhood synonymous with violence and failure.
Grigny is the hometown of Amedy Coulibaly, who killed a policewoman as well as four hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris two weeks ago. His associates Said and Cherif Kouachi slaughtered 12 more at the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Together they are the worst terror attacks in France in decades.
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El Jarroudi says the negative publicity surrounding the banlieues means companies shy away from recruiting there — and in turn, this further antagonizes the people of these towns.
“We feel like we’re alone, and when we talk about the banlieues we only talk about its problems and never about the opportunity the banlieues represent today,” El Jarroudi says. “That is crucial to bringing everyone together.”
In the meantime, Hatouma Diarra is hoping opportunity will come knocking as she pursues an internship this summer. Her dream is a career in journalism, but she knows that ambition alone may not be enough.
“To have a future you need to believe in yourself, but you also need others to believe in you,” she says.
