1This interview was conducted in November 2016, while walking around the city with Nourredine, a 21-year-old man whose father is from Tunisia.

2Nourredine grew up in the Minguettes district of Vénissieux. The son of a mechanic father, he is the second child in a family of 6 brothers and a sister. His older brother is 24 years old and works as a mechanic. The last of the siblings is 5 years old. All of the siblings except Nourredine and his elder brother are still in school. His mother is a housewife and his father works less than before: a work accident seriously injured him. Since then, his father has been recognized as a disabled worker. His family has lived for generations in Vénissieux.

3Unlike his friends, Nourredine is mature, and has been quiet from an early age. Nourredine indicated that he had cut ties with his childhood friends because they had carried out petty thefts, especially in groups. Nourredine therefore explained that he distanced himself from them so as not to end up with this kind of “problem,” because it is contrary to his education.

4Nourredine had a somewhat chaotic school career. Inattentive in class in primary school, he did not get good grades. After being expelled from one middle school, he had to go to another, where things did not go well at first. But with the help of his teachers he managed to get very good grades at the start of middle school, before seeing his academic results decline again. The period of middle school was for him the opportunity to carry out an internship in a kebab shop, which pleased him greatly; he especially liked making contact with customers. He said he was not interested in studies but instead dreamed of establishing his own family as soon as possible. In middle school, he was oriented towards vocational studies. In vocational school he prepared a CAP1 in bodywork. He chose this sector because he was attracted to tuning from a very young age. He thought that with such a specialty he could work in connection with his passion.

5Coming from a stigmatized neighborhood, he found it difficult to get an internship. While the internship was essential to obtaining his CAP, he was on the verge of not obtaining one: he had searched for a long time, and it was only the last week before the start of the internship period that he obtained one, after having called all the garages in Lyon and the surrounding area. His joy, however, was short-lived, as he was quickly subjected to racist insults about his skin color and his origins by his employer and his colleagues in a garage. He even took a few punches, launched as acts of virile masculinity by his colleagues, but of which he was the only recipient. Despite all these difficulties, he tried to stick it out until the end of this internship, for his parents’ pride and to set an example for his younger siblings. This type of internship was conducted in three periods of the year. After the first period of a month, he held out. The same went for the second period. At the end of this second period, Nourredine discussed the situation with his teachers, who called Nourredine’s employers and redefined the terms of his internship with them. The director of his school sought to calm the situation, and Nourredine still got his CAP.

6After leaving school Nourredine could not find work and spent 3 years “on the street.” His parents kicked him out of their home, thinking his inability to find a job was his fault. It was a very hard time for him: not only was he receiving criticism from his parents about being unemployed, he also saw other people his age attending school and therefore learning, which he could not do. He could not stand the criticism of his parents and was depressed by the stereotypes about young people. He went to the Local Mission,2 which paid for him to take CQP (the professional qualification certificate is a recognition of skills by the professional branch concerned) training in the field of security (CAP level). During this 8-month training Nourredine received a stipend of 200 euros per month, half of which he gave back to his parents. He worked as a parcel deliveryman, doing a lot of short-term jobs as a security agent to finance his studies. Once he obtained his diploma and regained the admiration of his parents, he regained self-confidence. The first year, however, was difficult: he did not find a job, and he only did a few undeclared missions. He also sometimes worked under the table when necessary: he would have preferred to have been declared. However, when he did not find steady employment, he was forced to moonlight in order to bring some money home; his parents were not getting enough. He also ended up dealing drugs at one point. He is not proud of it and recalls that for him, as for many others in the neighborhood, this kind of activity was not guided by a real appetite for the act but by poverty and idleness. For him, it happened when he was “on the street” and spent his days hanging out. In fact, the drug dealing episode did not last long for Nourredine: He was once tricked by a young man from the neighborhood who was only two years older, “without doing it on purpose.” This experience alone was enough for Nourredine.

7After a year, the friend who first told him about safety training put him in touch with employers, and that is how he really started to work in this sector, by doing many short-term jobs, especially in stadiums. He is very good at his job as a security guard, so much so that the head of security congratulates him. However, none of his small jobs during this period were in the field of his degree: he happened to be a deliveryman. After three years, tired out by the jobs carried out and reassured about his ability to follow training and obtain a diploma, he continued with a new course of training: he again started a CAP1 certification, “Team Leader in Security,” and graduated in April 2016. At the time of the interview, Nourredine sought to obtain his driver’s license in order to increase his chances of getting a job. His goal was to obtain a CAP2 in boiler-making, metallurgy in November 2016, to have a baccalaureate. He wanted to continue his studies before the age of 25 (the age limit to be a beneficiary of the Local Mission), to obtain other diplomas, and to open a small garage as an entrepreneur. His training as a mechanic has served him well: it is he who takes care of the maintenance of his brother’s car. His difficult integration into the job market means that he must gain new training every time, at least as long as he can claim this type of rights or benefits from the Local Mission. However, he recalls that these diplomas that he considered to be necessary to find work are perhaps more useful for young people who do not suffer from the stigma of the neighborhood, like he does. In addition, he feels these diplomas are a very important social foundation for the future; therefore, he currently prioritizes the consolidation of this foundation over the chain of jobs in security, which are not difficult to find but which, according to him, do not provide the future that more diplomas can allow.

8The young man develops his skills in bodywork to realize his dream: automobile tuning. He continues to develop his YouTube channel as well. His other hobby is motorcycle riding. He would like to gain his motorcycle license. Riding his motorcycle allows him to meet people.

9He criticizes racism and an excessive police presence in the neighborhood, and he wants to rehabilitate the image of the Minguettes. “Here we are honest citizens; we are like everyone else.” He also points to the role of the media in the stigmatization of the neighborhood: they only relate the problems emanating from the Minguettes.

10Nourredine remains committed to Vénissieux because it is his hometown, which he appreciates, but also because he wants to “make up for lost time” and prove that he wants to succeed. He also highlights the elements that make Vénissieux a pleasant place to live, such as the construction of the tramway, the presence of houses next to the Minguettes district, and all the forms of solidarity between neighbors. However, he mentioned discrimination in hiring linked to his domicile in this city, where people are stigmatized as being “car breakers, burners.” This stigmatization of Vénissieux and especially of his neighborhood of the Minguettes is so strong, that despite his strong attachment to his neighborhood, he thinks that young people also have an interest in leaving it, revealing his ambivalent relationship—one of strong attachments and difficulties—to the neighborhood because of that origin.