Source: Aljazeera

Paris, France – Kamel Fertass and his friends are sitting outside their local McDonalds. It is in the middle of a roundabout in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. “You want to hear my song?” he asks, holding out his phone.

He sings in a mixture of French and Arabic, his voice synthesised through a vocorder. The song is entitled ‘J’ai mal à ma France’ – I feel the pain of my France. This is the street cleaner’s first musical foray, a means of channelling the grief he felt after hearing about the attacks on Paris on November 13.

“It’s for everybody in France. We are French above all else,” says the 28-year-old, whose parents came to this country from Morocco. “It’s all we know. It’s work, it’s survival, it’s everyday life.”

Kamel Fertass [Lorraine Mallinder/Al Jazeera]

His declaration of allegiance is heartfelt, but the emotions are mixed. Living in Clichy-sous-Bois, one of the country’s most deprived areas, in a dystopian setting of battered high-rises and low expectations, has not encouraged feelings of belonging for him.

Back in 2005, the suburb emerged as a symbol of the marginalisation experienced by immigrant youths in France, when two teenagers were electrocuted in an electricity substation after being wrongfully pursued by police, sparking massive riots in banlieues across the nation.

Locals say that, bar some new buildings, not much has changed since then. Unemployment stands at 40 percent. With no major roads and no rail link, the community remains cut-off from central Paris, which is only 10 miles away.

Not that Fertass goes there much anyway. He doesn’t feel comfortable, especially not since the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher killings in January.

“As Muslims, we’re seen in a negative light,” he says. “We feel judged. There’s a lack of trust.”

It’s a feeling that’s well-documented,  this sense among France’s Muslims of being second-class citizens.

But, in the wake of Charlie Hebdo, which set off a passionate national debate on French identity and values, exemplified by the ‘Je suis Charlie’ slogan, many Muslims felt even more alienated from mainstream French society.

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