STRANGERS AT HOME

This documentary is the result of more than 10 years of sessions held in French high schools mostly in the Paris suburbs, in which together an Arab and a Jew questioned youngsters about racism, antisemitism, and prejudices. This stems from the observation made approximately 15 years ago, of a growing disconnect between disenfranchised youths and France's mainstream opinion and of the gradual separation between various communities within France's youth. This is best embodied in the keynote scene from the film in which, entering a class made almost entirely of young French citizens of foreign descent, when one asks the class "who here is French? », all the children raise their hand, but when asked "who feels French?" no one does...
While our sessions were held in all sorts of communities and schools, including public and private schools, religious schools (including Jewish schools) and non-religious schools, we chose to focus on one large high school; the Lycée Theodore Monod in Noisy le Sec, a suburb located 15 min from Paris city limits. In this school, the students are from 45 countries, the overwhelming majority being of immigrant descent.
In the movie, students express their perceptions of France and French citizenship, their disappointment at feeling rejected, their gross prejudice against others (the "French", the Jews, etc..); but also against themselves and the feeling of ghettoization. The feeling that they are not looked upon by others as true French, but also the feeling that they do not have much in common with the "genuine" French (culture, dress, food and even table manners) are key aspects of their perception of rejection.
Throughout our exchanges, we gathered surprising and often shocking remarks. The words exchanged between them and with us, reveal most of the time profound disarray, a loss of references and a feeling of rejection by society. The emotional reaction seems to have taken precedence over reflection.
Why can't these students manage to feel French?
Why this rejection against the country which hosted their parents or great- grandparents and nevertheless, is theirs? Why have these young people integrated a racist, xenophobe, and anti-Semitic speech? Why do victims of racism, sometimes use its vocabulary?
How is the question of identity linked to that of antisemitism and the rise of radical Islam?
Why are these communities essentially and increasingly bound by religion?
Through the voice of the young people to which we give the floor, but also with their professors and ourselves, this film tries to provide elements of replies to these questions and describes, in all its complexity a certain reality of the youth of immigrant descent, which is particularly timely.
Finally, with a strong impulse from their teachers, the students wander outside their own suburb into Paris. During visits to the Paris Grand Mosque, at Notre Dame, at the Drancy's camp memorial and into posh Paris neighborhoods, some of them gradually come to terms with the fact that they truly are French.