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The story of Maurice Papon is closely tied to ongoing unrest in the immigrant neighbourhoods of Paris. It is worth noting that during the Second World War he worked in the Vichy collaboration and has been accused of helping round up many Jews for the death camps. Yet he managed to rise to high office in the de Gaulle era. That time was deeply stained by the complex situation ruling the Algerian colony, hard to examine while the Vichy compromises and betrayals were still so vivid. The grandchildren of Papon's Paris victims are now portrayed as feeling not genuinely French and so a few may be at risk of equally maniac radicalization. Paris can warm hearts but, as in the 1968 upheaval, still needs to further open its heart to its own.