The town of Nanterre, located a few kilometers west of Paris in the Hauts-de-Seine department, still bears the scars of the urban riots of the summer of 2023. Barely erased, the “Justice for Nahel” tags reappear so quickly, while a silent march is being prepared. Initially scheduled for June 27, it was postponed two days later, to June 29, the day before the first round of the early legislative elections.
A year ago, on June 27, 2023, Nahel Merzouk died following a police shooting after refusing to comply. The death of the 17-year-old teenager was filmed and the video went viral on social networks, triggering three weeks of violence mainly targeting those who represented the State and public authorities. These urban riots were much more widespread on French territory than those of 2005, which occurred after the death of two teenagers, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, in Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis).
Death of Nahel: “My client is very threatened, there is no question of us seeing his face”, day of reconstruction under high security in Nanterre
A year after Nahel’s death, no date has been set for the police officer’s trial. Indicted for murder and placed in pre-trial detention, the agent was released on November 15 and placed under judicial supervision. He pleads self-defense. A thesis contradicted by the video and certain testimonies, and dismissed by the investigating judges.
Another investigation whose outcome is also awaited concerns Jean Messiha, who had launched a pot to raise 1.6 million euros for the police officer. Heard in November, the far-right polemicist was the subject of a complaint for organized gang fraud from the family of Nahel Merzouk, but the justice system has never communicated on this file.
“The political response is authoritarian”
As for the response from the presidential camp and the government over the past year, it is clear: it is “all-safe”. “It’s a rather conservative, authoritarian, right-wing response”analyzes François Dubet, sociologist and professor emeritus at the University of Bordeaux. “I see a political impotence which manifests itself, with a call for repression, for the punishment of parents, for the fight against immigration. For the rest, we are rather in the non-response to the basic problems. There has been no outline of a new policy for the city, which is in a state of brain death, no new school policy… Everything is happening as if social and ethnic segregation were in place. normal order of things.”
But even this security response does not seem to be up to the problem. A simple example: the “XXL net square” operations, praised by the outgoing executive, and aimed at fighting delinquency and more particularly drug trafficking. “It’s just communicationdeplores François Dubet. It’s very spectacular, the police arrive, they close the deal points, they leave, and it starts again. In reality, even the police feel helpless in the face of this situation.”
Mayors in favor of all-security have also decided to act on their scale. In April, Robert Ménard, the mayor of Béziers close to the far right, decided to establish a nighttime curfew for minors aged 13 and under unaccompanied by an adult. A few other cities, including Limoges, have followed suit, while local actors deplore a disinvestment of the power in place in culture, associations and social matters. Other municipalities preferred to rely on mediation.
In Limoges, the curfew for minors divides the population.
“No questioning”
Lecturer in sociology at the Jean-Monnet University of Saint-Etienne, Samir Hadj Belgacem deplores the lack of reflection by political power in matters of police doctrine. “There are few European countries where we employ the police as in France, but there is no questioning. Nothing. On the contrary, for 10 years, we have given more resources to the repression, we legitimize violence, we reinforce the use of firearms… And it doesn’t work, we see it, we know it, but we continue.
Samir Hadj Belgacem also underlines that the state of public services is increasingly failing in working-class neighborhoods, where residents feel abandoned. There have been many cries of alarm in recent years. “But the central political power does not hear this anger, even when it is non-violent,” regret the sociologist, who nevertheless rejoices in the “civic surge” of a part of the population of these neighborhoods who, faced with indifference towards them, “gets involved, gets involved, even politically, and tries to find non-violent solutions”.
“Let’s imagine a victory for the RN on July 7”
The divide seems more and more gaping between central public power and working-class neighborhoods. The embers of summer 2023 are still burning, and the National Rally, a party which defends national preference for social benefits and which wants to ban certain public jobs to dual nationals, is now at the gates of power.
This summer in Limoges, a curfew for unaccompanied minors aged 13 and under
“With a victory for the extreme right in the legislative elections, even if they do not have an absolute majority, and one or two police blunders, it does not take a great cleric to imagine what will happen. And in a few weeks, it’s the Olympic Games”says François Dubet. “We just have to hope we’re wrong.”
