Judicial information was opened this Thursday, June 29 for intentional homicide against the policeman who fired the shot during a road check that led to the death of Nahel in Nanterre, where a white march started at the start. afternoon, after two nights of urban violence.
The march in tribute to the 17-year-old young man left around 2 p.m. from the Pablo Picasso city, in Nanterre, to cries of “justice for Nahel” and “never again”, noted AFP journalists. The victim’s mother, perched on a van, wearing a “Justice for Nahel” T-shirt, opened the demonstration, followed by more than 6,200 participants gathered behind a banner bearing the same slogan. Tensions enamel the “white march”: the police fired tear gas in front of the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture.
The prosecution requests the provisional detention of the policeman
In the morning, the public prosecutor of Nanterre, Pascal Prache, announced that the policeman, a 38-year-old motorcyclist, was to be presented during the day to two investigating magistrates with a view to his indictment. “The prosecution considers that the legal conditions for the use of the weapon are not met”, underlined the magistrate during a press conference. He requested the detention of the police officer, an extremely rare choice in this type of case.
“We regret that the prosecutor conceals the possible complicity in the voluntary homicide of the second policeman and the possible forgery in public writings resulting from the initial false declarations of the shooter, who had formally affirmed that the young Nahel had tried to run into him with the vehicle ” , said one of the family’s lawyers, Me Yassine Bouzrou, in a press release.
A video, authenticated by AFP, showed that one of the two police officers held Nahel at gunpoint, then fired at point-blank range. The young driver died shortly after being hit in the chest. One of the two passengers in the vehicle is still wanted. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, asked the prefect of police for the administrative suspension of the policeman.
The death of the miner was followed by an outbreak of violence, particularly in Île-de-France, which escalated overnight from Wednesday to Thursday. In front of the facades of town halls blackened by the flames, the many charred carcasses of cars and the smell of burning that wafted in the early morning in many cities in France.
The executive between appeasement and firmness
Emmanuel Macron denounced “scenes of violence” against “institutions and the Republic” which are “unjustifiable”. In an attempt to avoid a repeat of the November 2005 riots in working-class neighborhoods, the president convened an interministerial crisis unit in the morning. The non-priority trips of ministers scheduled for Thursday have been postponed.
Last night alone, 180 people were arrested, 170 police and gendarmes injured, and several public buildings “burned or attacked”, according to the Interior Ministry.
“Avoid any escalation”
“I really call for a return to calm, as quickly as possible,” pleaded Benoit Jimenez, mayor of Garges-lès-Gonesse, where the town hall was burned down. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called for “avoiding any escalation”. Schools were also targeted, such as in Tourcoing, Evreux (Eure) or Halluin (North), and police stations in Rouen, Elbeuf (Seine-Maritime) and Trappes (Yvelines) to name but a few. In Amiens, a media library was “completely destroyed” by fire.
“All of this must stop,” said the Keeper of the Seals, who went to Fresnes prison (Val-de-Marne), attacked with fireworks by hooded people. “Anyone who irresponsibly […] spit on the police and on justice are also the moral accomplices of the abuses that are committed”, also criticized Eric Dupond-Moretti.
In Nanterre, in the working-class Pablo-Picasso district in particular, the clashes lasted until the middle of the night, with cobblestones being thrown, cries of “death to the cops!” and “justice for Nahel” tags, to which the police responded with tear gas.
In the neighboring department of Seine-Saint-Denis, police sources reported multiple car and shop fires, looting, police stations attacked, town halls degraded, a media library burnt down… Incidents were also deplored in several cities of Hauts-de-Seine but also elsewhere in France, in Lyon, Roubaix, Amiens and Nice, Dijon and Toulouse.
A tram and eleven buses were set on fire during the riots that troubled Ile-de-France overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, which led the president of Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) Valérie Pécresse to ask to stop serving sensitive neighborhoods on Thursday evening from 9 p.m.
Reinforcement of police deployment
The tragedy at the origin of the conflagration occurred near the Nanterre-Préfecture RER station, during a police check on the car driven by Nahel, a 17-year-old minor known for refusing to comply . The precedent had earned him a presentation to the prosecution last Sunday, with a view to a summons next September before a juvenile court. The case has reignited controversy over the action of law enforcement in France, where a record number of 13 deaths were recorded in 2022 after refusals to comply during traffic checks.
On Thursday, voices rose on the right to demand a state of emergency, like the president of the Republicans Eric Ciotti, who wants these exceptional measures which had been used in November 2005 to be introduced “without delay”. after 10 days of riots in the suburbs.
“I believe that we can mobilize a lot of resources […] without having to resort to specific articles of the Constitution”, reacted Gérald Darmanin, who announced a greater security deployment for Thursday evening: 40,000 police and gendarmes mobilized, including 5,000 in Paris (compared to 2,000 the The government is also planning a “change of doctrine, more offensive” in the response to the riots, according to a police source.