The French ‘banlieues’ (suburbs) are always presented in national and international media as a problem. Indeed, they are said to concentrate social and economic disadvantages, are ghettos for migrants and people from minority backgrounds, their inhabitants tend to participate less in institutional politics, riots happen every 5 years, etc. It is nevertheless striking that so little is done – research-wise – to try to grasp the perspective of the people who live there, and especially of the youth. Following an in-depth research action in Parisian suburbs conducted by a group of researchers together with tens of young people from the area, Marie-Hélène Bacqué (Professor at Paris-Nanterre University), one of the leading scholars on the French suburbs, will present the complex relationships between the youth and politics in the Parisian suburbs. Her respondents will be Insa Koch, Associate Professor of Law and Anthropology at the LSE Law School, and Michael Keith, Professor at COMPAS (Centre on Migration, Policy & Society), University of Oxford, Director of the PEAK Urban Research programme, and co-Director of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities.