France belongs to the people. We're a republic, a body united, tous pour un, un pour tous. That is, unless you're a sixteen-year-old homeless kid. Then, you're on your own.
"The People" doesn't apply to you when you grow up outside the system. There's no net the People cast to draw the stragglers to their bosom. Stragglers are unsightly, so much debris to be swept outside the inner circle. Just ask someone who lives on the wrong side of the city's péripherique.
A child on the street is a shock to the delicate sensibilities of the People. He doesn't inspire sympathy, he creates shame. No one wants to be shamed on the way to the market.
The People looked past me. I was a defect, an ugly scar. It was a good day when I was shooed away; at least they acknowledged my existence. After a while, I started to turn on the People. If they were going to put me on the outside, I was going to hack my way back in.
Even now, after having been off the streets for two-thirds of my life, I still find it hard to bond with the People. I've never found the same oneness I had with my street brothers. I crave that. But there's something that keeps me from being one with the People, something that still separates me, like a man cut off by the ring road.