Violence punctuated the evening and part of the night from Tuesday June 27 to Wednesday June 28, in Nanterre, after the death of a young 17-year-old motorist killed because of a refusal to comply by a police officer, who was taken into custody. The Express make the point.
What happened ?
The tragedy occurred Tuesday morning near the Nanterre-Préfecture RER station, in the Paris suburbs. Initially, police sources claimed that a vehicle had run into two police motorcyclists.
But a video circulating on social networks, authenticated by AFP, showed that one of the two police officers held the driver at gunpoint, then that he fired at close range when the car restarted. In the video, we hear “you’re going to get shot in the head”, without being able to attribute this sentence to anyone in particular.
The car ended its race a few tens of meters further, embedded in a post.
Who is the victim ?
The victim, Naël M., 17, died shortly after being hit in the chest. He was already known to justice, in particular for refusing to comply.
What consequences?
A car burns on the sidelines of a demonstration in Nanterre, the scene of incidents in the evening and part of the night, June 27, 2023
© / afp.com/Zakaria ABDELKAFI
The teenager’s death and its circumstances aroused emotion and anger in Nanterre, a popular city in western Paris where he lived. In the early evening, tensions erupted between residents and police in the Vieux-Pont district, AFP journalists noted. Twenty people were arrested, according to a report from the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture carried out around 3 a.m.
The prefecture of the department reported “sporadic movements” in several neighborhoods, adding that “events” continued, even if their intensity decreased. Many fires illuminated the streets of the Pablo Picasso city, where a car burned, according to AFP on the spot. The police tried to disperse small groups of rioters with tear gas.
If the police headquarters assured that the situation was “contained” shortly before midnight, tensions continued, spreading to other municipalities in the Paris region. The same source thus reported “very sporadic incidents” in Asnières, Colombes, Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis) and Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines).
In Nanterre, fireworks were fired near the prefecture. A fire broke out in a music school, on which the firefighters quickly intervened.
Fires were lit along the rails of the RER A between Nanterre and Rueil-Malmaison, several cars were set on fire, as well as garbage cans, and bus shelters were destroyed. Demonstrators erected some barricades.
Where is the investigation?
After the death of Naël M., an investigation was opened for refusal to comply and attempted intentional homicide of a person holding public authority. Another investigation, opened for intentional homicide by a person holding public authority, was entrusted to the IGPN (General Inspectorate of the National Police), the police force.
The 38-year-old policeman suspected of the fatal shooting was taken into custody for intentional homicide.
The lawyer for the victim’s family, Me Yassine Bouzrou, announced two complaints “in the coming days”. One will target the author of the shooting for intentional homicide and his colleague for complicity. A second complaint, for forgery in public writing, will be filed against the police, “who claimed that the young man had attempted to commit homicide on their person by trying to hit them, which is formally denied by the viewing of the video”, announced the lawyer.
Two other people were in the vehicle at the time: a first passenger fled, while the second, also a minor, was arrested and taken into custody. The latter was lifted in the early afternoon.