Through an analysis of the activism of the North Africa descendants from the suburbs in Paris region in the 1990s and 2000s, this article shows the plurality of their relationship to institutions (family, school, labor, government, police, justice, etc.). The study draws on a rich empirical material (forty one life stories of activists from three organizations, and focuses on difficult terrain often resistant to any sociological objectivation. Complementing the literature on the relationship to institutions of immigrant children, the approach microsociological, mesosociological and socio-biographic, by integrating personal stories in the analysis, the meaning that actors give to their actions, is fruitful because it renders an account of the impact of the structural and institutional factors, and the singularity of individual socializing experiences and various interactions that structure durably their relationship to institutions, while underlining at the same time, how they determine the differentiated forms of collective action.