Ferdie Rous makes the journey to the spiritual home of France, and finds the tensions of the modern French state.
In June this year France was rocked by the death of Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old boy shot by police in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre. For weeks, Paris and other urban centres witnessed the worst riots for nearly 20 years; 3,000 people were arrested and 2,500 buildings damaged.
Attempting to quell the violence, 40,000 police officers were met with hails of rocks and fireworks. Some weeks later, on Bastille Day, there was little physical evidence of the unrest, which had reportedly broken out of the banlieues and into central Paris for the first time. A spider web crack in the odd shop window was all that could be seen.
