Shooting in Poitiers: between emotion and calls to “restore the truth”, hundreds of people pay tribute to Anis

“Generous”, “smiling” et “innocent“. These words, written in all colors, are displayed this Saturday on a large black panel, a few meters from the place where Anis was killed on October 31. These are testimonies from students at the Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle high school in Poitiers where the 15-year-old teenager, injured in a shooting in the Couronneries district of Poitierswas in school. The young man is died of his injuries on November 2. In this file, the main suspect, a 25-year-old man, was indicted for “assassination” and placed in pre-trial detention.

To pay homage to Anis, 700 peopleaccording to the police, gathered this Saturday afternoon at Coimbra Square, in front of the restaurant where the young man was killed. Flowers were laid and several of Anis's loved ones, family members and friends, spoke, including her cousin Shéhérazade, in tears: “He was like my brother. I just wish you would give solidarity to his mother. She lost her only son. It's huge.”

Other young people are also in shock, like Samia, one of his former classmates: “I almost considered him as my brother. It touched me enormously, I said to myself that it couldn't be him. Now, going out is super dangerous.”

“It could have been my son”

Several mothers, very shocked by the tragedy, also spoke to express their emotion. “It could have been my son.”underlined one of them. Others in the crowd are also very marked. “It’s something that touches me a lot, it can happen to anyone,” explains Samira, accompanied by her children and her partner.

The crowd then headed towards the apartment of Anis' motherwho then went out onto her balcony to thank the participants in this tribute. The crowd respected a moment of silence.

“Restoring the truth”

Added to the pain of Anis' loved ones anger after the terms used to describe the young people caught in the shooting that evening. The day after the events, the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, wrongly mentioned “a brawl between rival gangs” opponent “several hundred people”and had denounced “'narcoracailles' which no longer have limits”. Samira, the mother of 3 children, is one of the many people outraged by these statements who have “sullied the image of this young man”.

“Anis had just asked his mother by telephone if he could go buy something to eat. He was eating a kebab with his friends. He has nothing to do, neither with scum, nor with drug traffickers. This is not a delinquent”, had underlined last Sunday by the lawyer of Anis' mother to France Bleu Poitou. Today, she deplores the silence of the government which “did not offer his apologies or his condolences. We talk a lot about drug trafficking, but we don't talk about this boy who died.”

For all participants in the tribute this Saturday, it is now necessary “restore the truth“. Many of them, notably aunts and mothers, hope that the minister will reconsider his remarks. “We are waiting for a denial and an apology for the mother“, indicated one of Anis' aunts. For her, the family is suffering the “double the pain of having had a child who died and of hearing that we are North Africans with all the shortcuts that go with it.”