ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of the police in the 2005 French riots. The police occupy a central role in the French state. Bearing this in mind, and given recent criticisms of their conduct in relation to the youth of the banlieues, it seems pertinent to ask such questions as: was police authority in any way responsible for triggering the riots in France? And what lessons should the police be drawing from the riots? We shall endeavour to answer these questions on the basis of 15 years of fieldwork studies on the police, the gendarmerie and their relationships with the residents of several so-called sensitive urban zones, and information mustered by the author during his time spent as Chief of Research at the Ministry of the Interior.
