Le Silence des champs de betteraves

When a young Beur (second-generation, North-African immigrant), a newcomer to this Ile-de-France village, is the victim of an Arab beating escapade, the community’s hundred and fifty inhabitants are left wondering why and how this kind of act could happen. In a village where most people vote Front National, it was easy for me to separate out the good people who resist from the bad who don’t know any better. This would have tied the story up neatly, but it wouldn’t have deepened our understanding of a situation which is more complex than appears. To try and understand how the village got to such a point, I looked into its history, got involved in the villagers’ lives and listened to their preoccupations. The village is peaceful, with no insecurity or unemployment, which are the usual ingredients leading to support for the FN… I simply hope that this approach will incite everyone, pro-FN and anti-FN voters alike, to stop and think, and fully assume their responsibility, because ‘we are all responsible for everything.'” (Ali Essafi)