ABSTRACT
On April 23, 2008, four individuals were placed under police custody after more than 350 officers were deployed in the Beaudottes social housing project, ‘a sensitive neighbourhood of Sevran’, a commune in the Department of SeineSaint-Denis, northeast of Paris, France (Libération, 2008: n.p.; See Figure 11.1). The French Intelligence Service had notified criminal justice personnel that the Beaudottes was in an ‘explosive situation’, with drug dealers imposing their violent will against inhabitants and, most importantly, authorities unable to penetrate, police and regulate the everyday spaces of the housing complex (350 policiers, 2008). Thus, on this spring day of 2008 various jurisdictions from Paris, SeineSaint-Denis, and Sevran joined forces in an attempt to reassert the authority of the government in this so-called ‘priority neighbourhood’ (Mandraud, 2008).
