The police will have to shed light on several cases. The IGPN, the police force, and its counterpart for the gendarmerie, the IGGN, have been seized of 10 investigations since the start of the violence which followed the death of Nahel, killed by the police in a traffic control, declared Wednesday, July 5 Gérald Darmanin, interviewed by the Senate Law Commission.
Among the investigations mentioned by the Minister of the Interior, two are known: one is carried out by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) after the serious head injury suffered by a young man, currently in the coma, in Mont-Saint-Martin (Meurthe-et-Moselle) where the Raid took place on June 30. Aimène Bahouh, 25, was traveling by car, window open, “to go and refuel at the gas pump in Luxembourg” after his day’s work, when he “received a projectile from the Raid, a ‘bean bag’ on temple” overnight from Thursday to Friday, a family member told AFP. The latter filed a complaint for “willful violence by a person holding public authority.”
The other investigation, carried out by the IGPN and the judicial police, concerns the death of a 27-year-old man on the night of Saturday to Sunday in Marseille, possibly the victim of a “flash-ball type” projectile shot. , according to the prosecution. He was found unconscious after falling from his scooter in Lieutaud, just a few hundred meters from the Old Port and the shopping streets where several hundred businesses were vandalized over the weekend. He was found “after what a witness described as a scooter accident” and while, it seems, “there were no law enforcement officers present” nearby, still according to this witness, a police source told AFP.
Two surveys in Marseille
It was during the autopsy that was confirmed “a kind of impact on his chest”, added this source, specifying that the investigation will now have to determine “the journey of this young man on the evening”. Questioned on Wednesday by RTL and BFM TV, the wife of this father assured that her husband had “done nothing wrong”. In the Marseille city, another investigation entrusted to the IGPN and the PJ relates to the case of a young man of 21 years, hospitalized in the same night from Saturday to Sunday but whose vital prognosis is not engaged. The facts “would have taken place in the city center”, still according to the prosecution, which did not reveal any other details, in particular on a possible link with the riots then in progress in the city.
To this, the executive responds with firmness. During his hearing, the Minister of the Interior ruled out any change to the law of February 2017 which relaxes, in certain respects, the legal conditions for the opening of fire by the police, in particular in the context of refusals to comply. . After the death of a Guinean in mid-June near Angoulême, Nahel M. is the second to be killed in 2023 in these circumstances. In 2022, 13 deaths had been recorded. “It is not because a police officer does not respect the law that this law must be changed”, said Gerald Darmanin. “This police officer, who is entitled to the presumption of innocence, clearly did not respect the 2017 law”.
According to a parliamentary source, the Minister of the Interior will also be heard by the Assembly’s Law Commission on Wednesday July 12 at 3 p.m. Since the start of the violence on June 27, 3,651 people have been arrested, including 1,366 in Paris and the inner suburbs, according to figures from the Interior Ministry arrested on Wednesday morning. The youngest arrested is “11 years old” and the oldest “59 years old”, said Gérald Darmanin during his hearing. Some 270 premises attacked “belong to the forces of order”, according to the minister, who added that 105 town halls were “burnt or degraded” and 168 schools “were the subject of attacks”. “17 attacks on elected officials” have been counted, including that against the home of the mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne).
For their part, some 90 organizations classified on the left, including LFI, EELV, CGT or Solidaires, are calling for “citizen marches” this Saturday July 8 to express “mourning and anger” and denounce policies deemed “discriminatory” against neighborhoods. popular.