A series of revolts took place between 10 and 12 May 1991 in the Saint-Antoine district of Forest, Brussels. On 10 May 1991 Rachid Redouane, a young man of 21, was stopped by the police while riding his motorbike, because his number plate was bent. During the stop, the police were overbearing towards the young man. Members of the young man's family witnessed the scene and decided to intervene. His father was knocked to the ground and dragged several metres by the police in front of his sister, who was also ill-treated. Following these events, a chain reaction in the Saint-Antoine neighbourhood led to the mobilisation of several hundred youn men, and confrontations began with the police. Cars were vandalised and shop windows smashed.  On 11 and 12 May, several rallies continued, causing extensive material damage and injuries: molotov cocktails and stones were thrown in the streets, and telephone boxes were destroyed. On 12 May, the police rounded up more than 100 people, young people and parents alike, and took them to the Etterbeek barracks. Following this intervention, calm gradually returned. 

At the time of the riots, identity checks in the Saint-Antoine neighbourhood were perceived as numerous, abusive and oppressive, creating latent tension between the youth and the police. The population felt humiliated by police checks and experienced structural racism in police actions. The municipalities of Molenbeek and Saint-Gilles had already been the scene of clashes of the same type as the one that was to take place in Forest, but they did not receive as much media coverage. As early as the 1990s, young people in the neighbourhoods began to distrust the media, particularly because of the prejudice and contempt that they exuded while not being given the opportunity to express themselves on television. In the wake of the Forest riots, a number of policy schemes were put in place to help and improve living conditions in Brussels' most precarious neighbourhoods. Some of these, such as the security and prevention contracts, had already been thought up before the 1991 incident, but the riots had been the key factor in their implementation. Others were created in response to the riots, such as the neighbourhood contracts and the Immigrant Policy Impulse Fund.