Saïd’s Family Story and Social Trajectory
p. 109-111
Texte intégral
1With Saïd, the tool of “the city narrative”1 was mobilized, in order to grasp spatial and intraurban mobility as well as the economic practices of young people in the city. The method then consists of following the young person in his urban circulations between different places and in identifying the “lived spaces,” the places that make sense. The city narrative in April 2018 thus makes it possible to space the life narrative, to make the link between events, points of junction or biographical bifurcation with spaces and places.
2Saïd suggested the Mission Locale (local social service) of Givors as a meeting point, four days after our meeting at the end of a Garantie Jeunes (Youth Guarantee) workshop. The young man, who had explained to us that he “had a lot to say,” suggested that we head towards the center of Givors, which was quite calm in the morning. The young man was born 25 years ago in Lyon. After spending his first years in Vienne, he grew up in the Vernes, a district in Givors, at the bottom of the district. The parents of the young man, a worker and a housewife, chose to raise their three sons in a single house rather than in an apartment in the heart of the neighborhood. For Saïd, growing up in a house protected him from “bad relationships,” and above all from the desire to go out at all costs. Sports also played this role, favoring the creation of links with the other young people of the neighborhood: “it allows us all to move forward together.” Saïd kept on with his education in Givors where he got his scientific baccalaureate. Even though he planned to join an engineering school, the young man decided to follow a bachelor’s degree in history in Montpellier in order to obtain the CAPES (eligibility to teach) and start a career as a teacher. The choice of the capital of Hérault was not anodyne: Saïd had a close friend in Montpellier. The need to “flee” Givors was very present, to search for an “elsewhere” and a feeling of freedom. He spent four years in Montpellier, describing this period as his “first rendezvous with reality.” Indeed, Saïd had to cope with several difficulties, especially at the university. He was refused enrollment in the faculty of history on the pretext that he came from another regional education academy, forcing him to opt, out of spite, for that of AES –Administration Économique et Sociale (Economic and Social Administration). At the end of this first year, a new attempt at enrollment in the faculty of history failed: the young man decided to change his orientation and head to the faculty of law, where he obtained his fist bachelor’s degree. At the same time, Saïd tried to find a part-time student job. Again, he faced some obstacles and was forced to accept any type of job: distributing phone books, washing dishes in restaurants, cleaning buildings. The young man managed to validate only a part of his second year of his law degree and had to retake the second semester. No longer having a scholarship, he had to increase his hourly volume of work—back then he was a football coach in a club and a referee occasionally—but he quickly realized the impossibility of his project. He therefore had to abandon his studies and his Montpellier plans to move back to live with his parents. In 2017, after the four years spent in Montpellier, Saïd had ambivalent feelings: he could not validate his license and he was confronted with racism in his job search and at work, but he gained autonomy and maturity and was happy to find “his city.”
3When he discovered the capital of Hérault, he was full of praise for this city, which was cleaner, prettier, safer, livelier, and more for students, compared with the city of his childhood. The fact that he was geographically distant modulated somewhat his relationship to Givors. Distance and time allowed Saïd to rediscover his city and develop stronger forms of attachment, although they were ambivalent at certain points, like when he emphasized the insecurity prevailing in certain districts of Givors. The young man wished to maintain a form of autonomy and independence vis-à-vis his parents and his brothers, yet he decided to look for a job in order to save money and to leave himself the time to consider other long-term professional prospects. He obtained a job as a supervisor in a college, a job that provided him with some form of recognition, in particular through the help given to some students. He took another job as an animator in the Festiv’été (the city festival) of Givors, a job that helped him rediscover his city. In 2018, Saïd decided to devote his year to having an exam. He took several exams that were quite different: one to become a customs officer, another to practice the profession of clerk, one to join a computer school. Unfortunately, and despite a significant investment, he did not succeed. The end of that year was difficult: he experienced failure in his exams, the end of unemployment rights, and a lack of income. However, he still refused to ask his brothers or his parents for help. Again, the young man’s feeling of failure was all the stronger because he had to confront his family: asking them for help would be more painful. His adviser from the Mission Locale suggested that he integrate with the Garantie Jeunes plan. It seemed to be a solution at that time. However, the four years spent in Montpellier as well as the year 2018 left some traces on Saïd’s identity, as if his repetitive failures had somewhat slowed down some of his ambitions and even damaged an already fragile self-esteem. When the young man gradually took us to the Vernes district, his story gradually turned to other themes, such as family, education, or religion. The closer we got to the neighborhood where he grew up and where he has returned to live with his family for two years, the more Saïd talked about his childhood, his friends, his brothers. His speech was then structured around the desire to break with the image of the “young city boy who burns trash,” stressing that the majority of young people in the Vernes district do not correspond to this prejudice, which is widely publicized. Many are those who work, who are “fighters,” and who succeed. Saïd regretted that in the end, the last group undeniably leaves the city. Some of his friends have moved to the south of France, to Paris, to Lyon, or to Switzerland, while others have embarked on other, more winding paths. Saïd’s speech leaves the impression that there are only two options left for the young people of the Vernes: “success” by leaving the city, or sinking into chaos, doing odd jobs, being unemployed, or even falling into drugs and alcohol. Some youth were even escaping from the city or dealing drugs. If the young man explained that he can understand those who “slip” or “fall” into alcohol and drugs—in particular those with a combination of personal, family, and school problems—he emphasized, by a mirror effect, the importance of the education he had received through the religious practice.
4When we got to the center of the neighborhood, Saïd suggested sitting on a bench located at the back of a strangely deserted building. This is undoubtedly what made Saïd declare that living in a house located at the bottom of the district—which, when we cross it, gives the appearance of being a suburban neighborhood with its small, quiet streets—undoubtedly protected him from “delinquency” into which he could have fallen, like many of his “buddies who followed the wrong way,” in particular via a “group recruitment.” For Saïd, it is his education, the solidity of family ties, and his religious practice that provided him with mental strength: a strength to resist, not to sink into darkness, and to keep hope. However, the young man explained how quickly the family presence can become invasive in a small town where everyone knows each other. Starting an intimate relationship can soon become complicated, and the feeling of freedom experienced during the four years in Montpellier suddenly seemed to be far away from everyday life in Givors. The ambivalence of the relationship with the neighborhood and the city re-emerges here too, between forms of attachment and rejection, between a sense of belonging and one of escape. After conversing about politics, presidential elections, the Front National, and the Gilets Jaunes movement, Saïd suggests that we go to the lower quarter. As we get closer to the family home, Saïd talks again about the importance of religion in his life and his personal practice in Givors. His religious faith takes shape, with the unwavering support of his family, as the two pillars on which the young man draws his strength in the face of his failures, his difficulties, but also in his choices.
Notes de bas de page
1 Roulleau-Berger, Laurence. 1989. “Récits de villes de jeunes nomades.” Les Annales de la recherche urbaine 42: 57–65.
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