These images have been seen and broadcast on France’s most frequently watched television news programs. However, Virgil Vernier is acting in memory by removing all commentary and producing this montage. A work of anamnesis that retraces step by step the events that unfolded over just under a month in Clichy-sous-Bois. From the death of two youths pursued by the police and sheltered in a power substation to the blaze that engulfed the neighbourhood and the subsequent takeover by the forces of law and order, the overarching feeling is one of brutality and contempt on the part of the state and its then Minister of the Interior. Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to "sweep the neighbourhoods clean with a Kärcher”.  State of emergency, curfew, LBD guns, patrols and helicopters… It was a civil war he unleashed. A breaking point whose consequences are still visible to this day, and whose wounds have yet to heal.

Éva Tourrent
Filmmaker and Tënk France’s Artistic Director