Overview
- France 5 aired a three-part series by Marie-Pierre Jaury on November 23 that compiles accounts from families, police, politicians and eyewitnesses.
- The film reconstructs the October 27, 2005 electrocutions of Zyed Benna, 17, and Bouna Traoré, 15, inside an EDF transformer as they fled police in Clichy-sous-Bois.
- Eyewitnesses contest statements by then–Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and prosecutor François Molins that there was no police pursuit, and former prime minister Dominique de Villepin acknowledges later information disproved a burglary claim.
- Interviewees say denials and portrayals of the boys as delinquents intensified anger that spread to roughly 300 communes and preceded a national state of emergency.
- Participants describe how tough-on-crime rhetoric and arrest quotas strained police–youth relations, while the case’s long arc saw officers tried in 2015 with no new legal steps reported now.