In Trappes, thousands stand against the racism that killed Pengo Bossio Wangi

According to Mediapart, several thousand people gathered on Friday evening in Trappes, at a rally organised by the town hall, a week after the racist attack committed by Kevin Tessier. The attack wounded several people and killed a Black resident, Pengo Bossio Wangi. Still according to Mediapart, the mood was calm and sombre, and the crowd was tightly packed. The title of the report, "Ouvrez les yeux !" ("Open your eyes!"), says enough about the message being carried.

What we do not know at this stage, based on this single account: the detail of the testimonies, the exact sequence of events, the legal follow-up. We will not invent them. Nor do we have anything to add about the perpetrator: the investigation and the courts will do their work. Our concern here is what the scene tells us about the town and the others like it.

What follows is our reading, not an established fact. A gathering like this is first and foremost an act of mourning and dignity. Thousands of people taking to the streets on a Friday evening, after a week of work, commuting, shopping and homework, also represents an effort. In working-class neighbourhoods, the people who keep daily life running are often the same ones who get looked at sideways: care assistants, cleaners, drivers, shop cashiers, teachers. They care, clean, transport and educate. They are also the first to hear that they "don't belong here".

Everyday racism does not need an attack to exist. It settles in the queues at counters, in recruitment processes that go nowhere, in flats that are never rented out, in repeated identity checks. It weighs on households already strained by rising rents, retreating public services and irregular shift patterns. When schools, healthcare or transport deteriorate, the work of holding a family together falls on households, and very often on women. They are then left carrying fear on top of everything else.

The Marxist tradition puts it bluntly: what divides us serves those who benefit from keeping us apart. A worker who sees his neighbour as a rival is not looking at those who set wages and rents. This excuses nothing and does not explain a murderous act; it simply means that neighbourhood solidarity, the kind found in the canteen, the workshop or the union, is a concrete barrier, not a slogan.

In Trappes on Friday, that barrier had a face: neighbours pressed close to one another. The real question comes next: what will be done, on Monday morning, so that this town is united not only in mourning but also in access to housing, jobs and services? A crowd that stands together is a fine thing. A neighbourhood with the means to live together is more lasting.