the strong emotion of his mother at the scene of the tragedy, a year later

NANTERRE – It was a year ago. Several hundred people gathered this Saturday, June 29 in Nanterre to pay tribute to Nahel, 17, whose death during a police check had caused several days of riots throughout the country.

Led away by the victim’s mother and relatives behind a banner “Justice for Nahel and for all the others”the procession set off early in the afternoon from the Charles-de-Gaulle esplanade, a few hundred meters from the Pablo-Picasso district where the teenager lived, towards the Nelson-Mandela square where the teenager died.

Behind them, many silent young people wearing white T-shirts “Justice for Nahel, executed on 06/27/2023”. “We are here to support the mother”explained to AFP Fatou, 16, who came with them from her friends.

“When I go home, I have no one left”

As you can see in the video at the top of the articleMounia Merzouk, Nahel’s mother addressed the crowd, wiping her tears: “ You see me like this, dressed, brushed, it’s just exteriorshe threw at them. I have to show you something outside, I can’t show you how I live at home, when I come home I have no one left. »

The young man was killed on June 27, 2023 by a bullet fired at close range by a motorcycle police officer who was controlling the vehicle he was driving.

According to elements of the investigation, the vehicle driven by Nahel had been stopped by traffic following a chase. A first police version, according to which the young man drove towards the biker, was quickly refuted by an amateur video of the scene posted on social networks.

The two police officers can be seen on the side of the vehicle, pointing their guns at the driver. One of them opens fire as the vehicle starts up again. The car then crashes into a concrete block a few dozen meters away.

The author of the shooting placed under judicial supervision

The police maintained that they were in danger of death because they were trapped between the car and a wall. The perpetrator of the shooting, Florian M., a motorcyclist aged 38 at the time of the incident, was indicted for murder and imprisoned for five months. He was released and placed under judicial supervision in November after several requests from his lawyer.

A reconstruction of the facts took place on May 5: in the presence of their lawyers, the police officer responsible for the shooting, his colleague present that day and several witnesses were compared their statements, in particular to establish whether Florian M. was in danger of death.

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 by the riots, shorter but more intense than those of 2005, had cost one billion euros.

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