1 - Paris (France) 2003 During my life experiences, urban life has had many meanings. In 2003, I was 30 years old, when I came back from Algeria, after having lived there for 4 years. I was searching for my origins (I was born in Algeria, from a mixed couple: French mother and Algerian father). Civil war was finishing, and I was out of work so there was no doubt: I was coming back to France, to Paris in particularly. I realized that urban life was the flag of freedom and democracy. It was the place where different religions, people from different origins, girls and boys could meet. Urban life, the city, gave me the oxygen I needed back: freedom, social and ethnic diversity, parties, culture. This picture was taken during my first contact with a real bar (not a clandestine one, where you risk jail or a fight with intolerant people against alcohol for religion reasons). It was a bar in Bastille Neighborhood, where I drunk my first glass of French red wine, (“Boys and girls”-Blur, was played and I realized how lucky I was compared to all those young and less young that would never live in a big city where everything can happen. A concept completely unimaginable in Algeria at those times and, sadly, still now … Now I better understand why I was attracted by this red atmosphere and a picture of a man on the moon: I was that guy …
