In a city center of Nanterre locked by the police, the justice system is organizing on Sunday a reconstruction of the scene of the death of Nahel, killed by a police officer’s shot at the end of June 2023, a tragedy which led to riots an exceptional scale.
Gendarmes and police officers were deployed in large numbers around Nelson-Mandela Square, near where the car driven by the 17-year-old finished its race on June 27, in the popular suburb west of Paris.
A dozen law enforcement trucks and barriers have been prepositioned to prevent access to the area, police officers are visible on the neighborhood’s rooftops and a drone flies over the scene, AFP journalists noted. Behind the significant deployment to keep journalists and onlookers at bay and secure the scene, the section of road where the police officer shot Nahel is hidden from view by metal barricades.
Vehicles used to reconstruct the facts were brought to the square, including a yellow car resembling the Mercedes that Nahel was driving on the day of his death with two passengers aged 14 and 17 on board.
By mid-morning, the reconstruction took place peacefully. Some passers-by who had to review their morning itineraries complained to the city’s mediators, who were deployed in large numbers and recognizable by their red oilskins. “They are complaining,” commented one of them, who wished to remain anonymous, with a smile.
First confrontation
In the presence of their lawyers, the police officer responsible for the shooting, the colleague who accompanied him and several witnesses were to be questioned on the spot by the investigating judges, keen to establish whether Brigadier Florian M., indicted for intentional homicide , was in mortal danger when the shot was fired.
“For the first time, all parties will be confronted with their testimony at the crime scene, it is a strong moment,” Me Nabil Boudi, counsel for Nahel’s mother, told AFP this week. Present at the reenactment, the latter did not want to speak to the media.
Not far from the rather busy Nanterre intersection, certain buildings still bear the marks of the nights of riots which followed the death of the 17-year-old teenager.
Schools, courts and other public buildings attacked, stores looted… Damage estimated at one billion euros was recorded across the country, according to a Senate report.
According to elements of the investigation, following a chase, the vehicle driven by Nahel was stopped by traffic. A first police version, according to which the young man drove towards the biker, was quickly refuted by a video of the scene posted on social networks.
We see the two police officers on the side of the vehicle, pointing their guns at the driver. One of them shoots him as the vehicle starts again. The car then crashed into a concrete block, a few dozen meters further on. The police maintained that they were in danger of death because they were trapped between the car and a wall.
Florian M., a police motorcyclist aged 38 at the time of the events, 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.
After the police officer was released, Mounia, Nahel’s mother who was raising him alone, called for a rally to which several hundred people attended peacefully. “A police officer kills a child, Arab or black, becomes a millionaire and leaves prison, reunites with his family peacefully for the holidays,” she lamented in a video, in reference to the jackpot which raised more than 1.6 million euros in support of the police officer’s family.
Nahel reconstruction
