ABSTRACT
The perception among the unemployed, undereducated youths of being stigmatized and abandoned by the very same State that is supposed to protect and defend them has emphasized the need among scholars to examine suburban violence beyond the arguments of immigration control, delinquency, illegalism and public security. One specific view that needs to be considered first here is the relation between rioting and postcolonial culture. As Rada Ivekovi has noted, the suburban riots meet the current phenomena in the making of Europe through the refusal to face historic and colonial responsibilities. Whether in the ban-lieues, or on the shores of the island of Lampedusa, extra-constitutional exceptions are being made on a large scale. The endless repression and stigmatization of those who live in the poor outskirts of Paris cannot be isolated from the policies of refoulements and the invisible detention centres for the undocumented, the main purpose of which is the exportation of European borders into neighboring countries.
