The residential areas, designated “priority areas”, gather 5.2 million inhabitants, about 8% of the French population, indicate the Insee figures for 2023, quoted by the France-Presse agency (AFP), which also recalls previous data to the covid -19 pandemic, according to which these urban areas had a poverty rate three times higher than the national average.
The French news agency released data it defined as “essential about these deprived neighbourhoods”, following the death of 17-year-old Nahel M., shot by a police officer last Tuesday, and the riots that have followed in the country since then.
According to this year’s Insee figures, 56.9% of children in these neighborhoods live in poverty, compared to 21.2% in mainland France.
Taking into account the world population of the “peripheral districts”, the AFP writes, also citing data from the Insee, the poverty rate in 2019 was three times higher than that of the rest of France, with 43.3% of residents living under the poverty line, against 14.5% in mainland France.
Insee’s 2020 unemployment data attributes a rate of 18.6% to the population of the “peripheral neighborhoods”, as opposed to the national rate of 8%.
In average values for 2020, Insee estimated the annual income of households in these neighborhoods at 13,770 euros, while in the “neighbouring cities” it rose to 21,730 euros.
According to the Observatoire National de la Politique de la Ville, also quoted by AFP, a quarter of the inhabitants of these neighborhoods receive a social inclusion income (RSA, Revenu de Solidarité Active), twice as much as the rest of mainland France .
Also according to the Insee, in 2021, 23.6% of the inhabitants of the “priority districts” came from other countries, a figure that fell to 10.3% in the rest of France. In Seine-Saint-Denis, a Parisian suburb with a high density of these neighborhoods, this rate reached 30.9%, the AFP writes, citing the Insee.
The AFP also recalls the 2017 report by the Défenseur des Droits (Defender of Rights), which indicated that a youth identified as black or Arab was “20 times more likely to be arrested than the general population”.
In 2014, the AFP continues, the French government counted the existence of 1,514 residential areas, known as Quartiers Prioritaires de la Politique de la Ville, which had invested nearly 12 billion euros in rehabilitation works between 2004 and 2020, according to the National Agency for Urban Renewal (ANRU).
In 600 of these neighborhoods, large dilapidated apartment buildings were demolished and replaced with lower buildings that were more open to the environment.
According to ANRU, quoted by AFP, the French government plans to invest an additional 12 billion euros in these neighborhoods by 2030.
Source: DN
