AFP
Nanterre: one year later, a march in tribute to Nahel, killed by a police officer
Several hundred people gathered in Nanterre on Saturday to pay tribute to Nahel, 17, whose death a year ago during a police check sparked several days of riots across the country. Led by the victim’s mother and relatives behind a banner reading “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 neighborhood where the teenager lived, toward Place Nelson-Mandela where the teenager died. Behind them, many silent young people wearing white T-shirts reading “Justice for Nahel, executed on 06/27/2023.” “We are here to support the mother,” Fatou, 16, who came with them from her friends, told AFP. The young man was killed on June 27, 2023, by a bullet fired at point-blank range by a motorcycle police officer who was checking the vehicle he was driving. According to elements of the investigation, the vehicle driven by Nahel had been stopped by traffic after a chase. An initial police version, according to which the young man had charged the motorcyclist, was quickly refuted by an amateur video of the scene posted on social networks. It shows the two police officers on the side of the vehicle, pointing their weapons 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 further. The police officers maintained that their lives were in danger because they were stuck between the car and a wall. The author of the shot, Florian M., a motorcyclist aged 38 at the time of the events, was charged with 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 who shot, his colleague present that day and several witnesses were confronted with their statements, in particular to establish whether Florian M. was in mortal danger. Nahel’s death led to riots of exceptional magnitude 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. mby-mlf/pa/gvy
