Fearing they were being pursued by members of the Anti-Criminal Brigade Bouna shouted to run. A security guard from a nearby construction site had called the police claiming that the boys had been trespassing though witnesses present deny this was the case. In an attempt to escape the infamous Gendarmes the youths vaulted the fence of an electrical substation apparently unaware of the danger.

Bouna and Zyed were fatally electrocuted. The police deny chasing the boys. As news of the boy's deaths circulated other youths began to congregate to grieve and vent their anger. As a result around fifteen cars were burnt. The next night the violence had intensified. Approximately four hundred youths faced off with three hundred riot and military police. The following morning local residents organised a peaceful demonstration calling for calm and a formal investigation into the deaths of the teenagers although much of this fell on deaf ears as the rioting continued and the government refused to offer any kind of redress. On October the 30th the interior minister Nicholas Sarkozy promised the nation, live on television that there would be "zero tolerance" for the "scum" in
the suburbs.

Later that night at Tarawih prayers the police set off a tear gas canister in the local Mosque. The official reason the Police have given: a badly parked car. The government has thus far refused to apologise to the Muslim community. Within a few days copycat rioting had spread to other suburbs and cities as far away as Brussels with an estimated 9000 cars, shops, schools and warehouses torched and 22,652 people arrested, half of them under eighteen and almost all second or third generation immigrants. President Jaques Chirac has acknowledged that there is a "profound malaise" in society and promised to combat the "poison" of racial discrimination. His comments however, will do little to reassure the people of Clichy-sous-bois. A recent poll showed that only 29% of the French public believe he is capable of finding solutions to the crisis.

In contrast, Sarkozy, and his bitter rival, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin have seen their popularity soar as a result of their perceived 'no-nonsense' stance on the unrest. In reality they are both manipulating the crisis in an attempt to gain popularity for the presidential election in 2007 with Sarkozy in particular using the kind of rhetoric that will undoubtedly gain him popularity amongst the French far right electorate. Much of the Western and particularly American press has focused on the fact that the two boys were Muslims and are determined to fuel their own agendas by referring to the rioters as the "Parisian Intifada" and linking the troubles to some kind of Islamic radicalism. It is true that many of the youths involved are Muslim but this has little or nothing to do with the crisis. Clichysousbois has 40% unemployment, half of its inhabitants are under 20 and Police harassment is rife.

Anti-racism campaigner Laurent Levy believes that the suburbs have for some time been a ticking time bomb. " When large sections of the population are denied any kind of respect, the right to work, the right to decent accommodation, what is surprising is not that the cars are burning, but that there are so few uprisings." He remarked. In April Amnesty International criticised the French Police for their violent treatment of young men from African backgrounds during identity checks. According to French Journalist Naima Bouteldja "The unrests were first and foremost the result of decades of social exclusion, discrimination and racism. The majority of people who live in the suburbs are of African descent (mainly North African) but there are also many white people. In France we do indeed have a huge problem of (institutionalised) racism, but also impunity surrounding racism: politicians and socalled scholars can go uncensored and unpunished with incredible comments on a scale impossible to imagine in the UK".

She adds that the riots were intensified by Sarkozy's provocative behaviour, and deems him to be "unfit for office.” A recent article by Paul Silverstein and Chantal Tetreault stated that "The rage expressed by young men from the cités does not spring from anti-imperialist Arab nationalism or some sort of anti-Western jihadism, [it is] from lifetimes of rampant unemployment, school failure, police harassment and everyday discrimination that tends to treat the youths as the racaille (scum) of Sarkozy's insult - regardless of race, ethnicity or religion.

To change this Bouteldja argues that France would need to undergo a huge political transformation which would lead to recognition of these "immigrants" as "Full and equal citizens of the republic." There is no doubt a deep rooted inherent racism in France that alarmingly, is manifest squarely in the heart of government. With a further shift to the right expected, France's six million Muslims should not expect liberty, equality or fraternity anytime soon