On August 28, the prefect’s office of the Val d’Oise département northwest of Paris took to social media to brag about the eviction of a family from social housing. The tweet concerned the family of a rioter who had been sentenced to twelve months in prison for looting an optician’s shop during June’s uprisings over the police killing of seventeen-year-old Nahel Merzouk.

Complete with emojis, humiliating photographs, and the hashtag #DroitsEtDevoirs (Rights and Duties) — a reference to President Emmanuel Macron’s mantra that social welfare is a privilege, based on merit — the announcement was met with outrage and deep concern.

The prefect’s post offers a glimpse into the thirst to reassert authority in many spheres of the French state, rattled by the five days of rioting that engulfed the country in late June and early July. Yet if it was designed to scare would-be troublemakers and showed a great deal of petty sadism, there was more bluster than meets the eye in the eviction announcement. In fact, the family’s eviction had already been ordered by the courts on account of unpaid rent. Usually, however, these procedures take much longer and are prone to significant delays. Of the many eviction orders pending in a département like the Val d’Oise — a sprawling area that covers affluent exurbs and a ribbon of working-class suburbs closer to Paris — this rioter’s family was singled out and held up as an example of the state’s ironclad determination to seek retribution for delinquency and urban violence.