On June 27, 2023, young Nahel died of a bullet fired by a police officer in Nanterre, leading to a series of very intense riots in working-class neighborhoods. A march is organized this Saturday, June 29, one year after the tragedy.
A march in tribute to Nahel, killed at the age of 17 on June 27, 2023 by a police officer during a check, is being organized this Saturday, June 29 in Nanterre, in Hauts-de-Seine. The case that had caused several days of riots, becoming the symbol of the fight against police violence.
The march will start at 2 p.m. from the Charles de Gaulle esplanade, a few hundred meters from the Pablo Picasso neighborhood, where the teenager lived. The procession will then go along the boulevard de Pesaro before reaching Nelson Mandela Square, where Nahel died. “It will be a silent march, where I will make a short speech,” Nahel’s mother Mounia Merzouk told RTL on Thursday. “I call for calm, dignity and contemplation,” she explained to ParisianSome 500 to 800 people are expected, according to a police source, with no particular disturbances expected.
Self-defense or police violence?
On June 27, 2023, after a chase, the vehicle driven by Nahel was stopped because of traffic. An initial police version, according to which the young man had driven into a police officer on a motorcycle, was quickly refuted by a video of the scene posted on social media. The two police officers can be seen on the side of the vehicle, pointing their guns at the driver. As Nahel restarts his vehicle, one of them shoots him. The car then crashes into a concrete block a few dozen meters away. The police officers maintained that they were in mortal danger, as they were stuck between the car and a wall.
Florian M., a 38-year-old police officer at the time of the events, was charged with murder and placed in pre-trial detention for five months. He was released and placed under judicial supervision in November after several requests from his counsel. A reconstruction of the facts took place on May 5: in the presence of their lawyers, the police officer who fired the shot, his colleague who was present that day and several witnesses were confronted with their statements, in particular to establish whether Florian M. was in danger of death.
Nahel’s death led to riots of exceptional magnitude throughout France. Public buildings attacked, schools and courts burned, shops looted: a Senate report estimated that the damage caused by the riots, shorter but more intense than those of 2005, amounted to one billion euros.
premium Nahel, one year later: why has France not found a way out of the crisis in the suburbs for forty years?
With AFP
