Hanifa Guermiti cried as she surveyed the charred remains of the public library that for years had provided books, comics and a quiet homework space for the children on the housing estates of Borny, one of France's most deprived neighbourhoods. "My heart is broken," she said, remembering the children whom she had helped with schoolwork there.
With damage estimated at around €12m (£10.3m) and more than 110,000 books and documents destroyed, the burning to the ground of the state-of-the-art library in this poor neighbourhood of the eastern city of Metz was one of the biggest attacks on French state infrastructure in the five nights of rioting across the country.
The police shooting of Nahel M, a 17-year-old boy of Algerian and Moroccan background, at a traffic stop outside Paris last week has led to sustained unrest nationwide: more than 2,000 cars burned, more than 700 businesses damaged and more than 2,000 people arrested, with an average age of 17.
Beyond Borny, across to the former mining towns along the German border, in a region where the vote for the far-right Marine Le Pen has grown, cars were torched, bins were set alight and youths clashed with police. A McDonald's was burned down, a kebab shop set on fire, a police station attacked and a school damaged.
Borny, which has a population of 17,000, above-average unemployment and more than half of its residents living below the poverty line, is symbolic of many of the neighbourhoods that have erupted into car-burning and clashes with police in recent nights. It lies only 2 miles from the vibrant centre of Metz, which boasts Michelin-starred restaurants and an outpost of the Pompidou centre for modern art.
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