France Is on Fire after Police Killing

The Paris protests continued after two days of “rare violence” and the first emergency security meeting – an official confirms the French government’s efforts to be firm with rioters

Some 40,000 police officers were deployed to quell the protests. Police were able to detain 668 people, the interior minister said, of which 27 were in the Paris region.

President Emmanuel Macron planned to leave an EU summit in Brussels, where France plays a major role in European policymaking, to return to Paris and hold an emergency security meeting Friday.

200 police officers were injured according to a police spokesman. There wasn’t a lot of information about the injuries in the rest of the population.

Schools, town halls and police stations were targeted by people setting fires, and police used tear gas, water cannons and dispersion grenades against rioters, the spokesperson said.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Friday denounced what he called a night of “rare violence.” The office described the arrest as a sharp increase in previous operations and part of an overall government effort to be “very firm” with rioters.

The government has stopped short of declaring a state of emergency — a measure taken to quell weeks of rioting around France that followed the accidental death of two boys fleeing police in 2005.

When did an officer shoot a black man? The police force that doesn’t shout at blacks and Arabs, shoot in the head and kill in the morning

The police officer was taken into custody after the shooting and the prosecutor announced a charge of voluntary homicide, saying that the legal standard for the officer to use his gun had not been met.

The detained police officer’s lawyer, speaking on French TV channel BFMTV, said the officer was sorry and “devastated.” The officer did what he thought was necessary in the moment, attorney Laurent-Franck Lienard told the news outlet.

The officer doesn’t do it in the morning because he isn’t good at it, according to Lienard. “He really didn’t want to kill.”

The shooting that was filmed on video shocked France and made people resentful of police in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

“We have to go beyond saying that things need to calm down,” said Dominique Sopo, head of the campaign group SOS Racisme. The issue here is how to create a police force that doesn’t shout at blacks and Arabs, use racist terms, shoot them in the head and so on.

In Nanterre, a peaceful march Thursday afternoon in honor of Nahel was followed by escalating confrontations, with smoke billowing from cars and garbage bins set ablaze.

An example of racism in France from riots and the death of a Parisian boy killed by a police officer during a curfew

The town of Clamart, home to 54,000 people in the French capital’s southwest suburbs, imposed an overnight curfew through Monday because of the risk of public disturbances. There was a curfew in the town of Neuilly-sur-Marne.

Nahel was driving a yellow Mercedes when he was shot at close range during a police stop near Nelson Mandela Square around 8 a.m. Tuesday, according to Nanterre Mayor Patrick Jarry.

The officer who admits to shooting his gun said he did so because he was afraid of being hit or someone else, according to the newspaper La Montagne.

The scenes in France’s suburbs echoed 2005, when the deaths of 15-year-old Bouna Traoré and 17-year-old Zyed Benna led to three weeks of riots, exposing anger and resentment in neglected housing projects. The boys were killed after hiding from the police.

Deadly use of firearms is less common in France than in the United States, though several people have died or been wounded by French police in recent years, prompting demands for more accountability. George Floyd’s shooting by police in Minnesota led to protests in France.

13 people were killed when police shot them last year, a police spokesman said. This year, three people, including Nahel, have died in similar circumstances.

There’s a reason this boy was killed, it’s because of France’s history of racist behavior toward Arabs and Black people.

She said that the riots are about something much bigger and that they reflect the biases of the society.

“The reality is that it’s not inexplicable. Fleming authored ” Resurrecting Slavery: Racist Legacies and White Supremacy in France” and he said its not rocket science and it’s racism.

France’s Teen Police Shooting Protests – Justice for Nahel’s Family? The Case of a Murder by a Teen

Critics say that Macron and other leaders are showing sympathy — but not an intent to examine whether the problems that led to Nahel’s death run deeper than a single officer’s actions.

Nahel’s killing is now a rallying call, in a similar way that George Floyd’s murder by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 sparked widespread unrest over the police use of force, particularly against minorities.

A voice is said to be saying that he’s going to get a bullet in the head. As the car moves forward, a single shot is heard. Nahel died at the scene, when his car rolled forward after hitting a utility pole.

Two other people were in the car with Nahel — one has spoken to police, but the other fled the scene and was being sought by law enforcement, Jarry said.

The two officers were riding their motorcycles when they attempted to stop the car after seeing it speed through bus lanes, according to France’s BFM TV, citing a timeline issued by the prosecutor’s office. The car’s driver didn’t stop until he was cut off by a traffic jam, the prosecutor said.

But after hearing conflicting versions of events about deadly violence, Green party leader Marine Tondelier was quoted saying, “You get the feeling that our police is becoming like America’s.”

The chant heard repeatedly is, “Justice pour Nahel,” but while the protest center around the teenager’s tragic death, demonstrators’ demands go further.

From the mayor to the president, authorities expressed their condolences and support for Nahel’s family this week, along with a pledge to hold police accountable. The leaders have been focused on using the police to prevent damage during the protests.

The police and other emergency personnel were thanked in a letter by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/30/1185394143/france-teen-police-shooting-protests-nahel

The Paris protests against the killing of Nahel M. may have ended with a new law protecting officers from a police officer’s orders

Jarry and others pleaded with the protesters not to damage the buildings used by the residents. Two schools have been targeted, he said, and a leisure center and cultural center have been badly damaged or destroyed.

Djigui, one of the thousands of protesters who took to the streets in Paris on Thursday afternoon, said his mom was still nervous whenever he left the house. “I can hear the crack in her voice when she checks to make sure I have my ID card or just says, ‘Watch out.’”

Still, the killing of Nahel M. might have ended up as little more than a secondary news item. The police officers who shot the erratic driver were portrayed in early press accounts to have acted in self-defense. This version of events would have placed the officers under the protection of a 2017 law, passed by Mr. Macron’s predecessor, François Hollande, that loosened police restrictions on the use of firearms in cases where a driver refuses to stop at an officer’s order. This law has been linked to an increase in fatal police shootings, which have gone up to a peak of 52 deaths in 2021.