“It will be a silent march, where I will make a short speech.” Mounia Merzouk, the mother of young Nahel, plans to talk about her son this Saturday, “how he was” and how “a grieving mother” lives, she said on RTL. She will do so during the march organized this afternoon in Nanterre, one year after the death of the 17-year-old, killed on June 27, 2023 by a police officer during a traffic stop.
The march will start at 2 p.m. from the Charles de Gaulle esplanade, a few hundred meters from the Pablo Picasso district, where the teenager lived. The procession will then go along the Boulevard de Pesaro before reaching Nelson Mandela Square, where Nahel died.
Several hundred people expected
Some 500 to 800 people are expected, according to a police source, with no risk of any particular disturbance expected. This demonstration has been declared to the prefecture, according to the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture.
A year ago, Nahel’s death led to riots of exceptional scale throughout France. Public buildings attacked, schools and courts burned, stores looted: a Senate report estimated that the damage caused represents one billion euros.
Florian M., a police motorcyclist aged 38 at the time of the events and indicted for murder, was placed in pre-trial detention for five months. He was released and placed under judicial supervision in November after several requests from his counsel.
