The Brief Wondrous Life of Ibrahim Ali Abdallah: “Banlieue Youth” and the Body Politic in Late 20th-Century France

On the night of February 21, 1995, a seventeen year old French-Comorian boy named Ibrahim Ali Abdallah was shot and killed by members of the National Front in one of Marseille’s rundown northern neighborhoods.   In the media frenzy following Ibrahim’s death, the press focused considerably on the rise of the radical right in France.  But, curiously, the press also focused intensely on Ibrahim’s character.  Was he an upstanding future citizen of the republic—or a juvenile delinquent?  As part of their investigation into Ibrahim’s background, the press closely examined his recreational interests, particularly his heavy involvement in state-sponsored hip hop programs.  Many of these youth programs were part of a broader, state-led movement encouraging residents to participate in neighborhood renewal. The press questioned whether such programs were actually working and if Ibrahim’s death signaled that investment in so-called banlieue youth had ultimately failed to get these young people off the streets.

State authorities and the media had very gendered understandings of “banlieue youth” as an idea and a category of analysis.  Efforts to rehabilitate rundown neighborhoods, as well as the young residents of these cités, show how after-school programming has attempted to manage banlieue boys and girls in particular ways.  Such efforts also reflect a broader contemporary French discourse about the bodies and practices of so-called “immigrant youth” and their place in the nation.  Recent studies have focused on this issue by exploring debates about headscarves, particularly how “immigrant girls” and their choices regarding the hijab are considered an indication of how French they aim to be.  This essay, however, examines the interrelated themes of gender, empire, and citizenship as they pertain to “immigrant boys,” and shows how extracurricular activities in neighborhood youth centers have sought to discipline male bodies and to cultivate particularly masculine citizenship practices.