A French policeman was charged Thursday with intentional homicide and placed in pre-trial detention after the death of a teenager, Nahel, on Tuesday near Paris, which led to two nights of urban violence in France and a white march Thursday which ended in confusion and clashes.
“The police officer referred today as part of an opening of judicial investigation for intentional homicide has been indicted on this count and placed in pre-trial detention”, according to a press release from the prosecution.
The march in tribute to the 17-year-old young man began around 2:00 p.m. local time in Nanterre, in the Hauts-de-Seine, where the young man died, shot in the chest by a police officer.
The victim’s mother, on a van, wearing a “Justice for Nahel” t-shirt, opened the parade, which brought together 6,200 people according to a police source. They went to the scene of Nahel’s death to observe a minute of silence.
But the demonstration ended in confusion, with clashes, tear gas and fireworks, a few fires and destroyed street furniture. Several cars were set on fire, AFP noted.
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,” he said. 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 police officer 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 a lawyer for the Yassine Bouzrou family, in a press release.
According to a video authenticated by AFP, one of the two police officers held Nahel at gunpoint, then fired at point-blank range.
“Unjustifiable violence”
Interior Minister 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 the Paris region, which escalated overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.
In front of the facades of town halls blackened by flames, the many charred carcasses of cars and the smell of burning that wafted in the early morning in many cities in France, President Emmanuel Macron denounced “scenes of violence”, “unjustifiable”. , against “the institutions and the Republic”.
Schools, media libraries and police stations were targeted, as well as buses in the Paris region.
In a popular district of Nanterre, the clashes lasted until the middle of the night, with the throwing of cobblestones, to which the police responded by firing tear gas.
“Let it stop”
The Head of State convened an interministerial crisis unit in the morning to try to avoid the recurrence of riots which had broken out in November 2005 in working-class neighborhoods, after the death of two teenagers, electrocuted in a transformer while that they were hiding there from the police.
The government assured that the triggering of the state of emergency, demanded by certain voices on the right, was “not an option considered today”.
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, 180 people were arrested and 170 police and gendarmes injured, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
Gérald Darmanin announced the mobilization Thursday evening of 40,000 police and gendarmes, including 5,000 in Paris (against 2,000 last night).
“All of this must stop,” declared the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, who visited a prison in the Paris region, attacked with fireworks by hooded people.
The tragedy at the origin of the conflagration occurred during a police check of the car driven by Nahel, known for refusing to comply. The precedent had earned him a presentation to the prosecution last Sunday, with a view to a summons in September before a juvenile court.
The case has reignited controversy over law enforcement action in France, where a record 13 deaths were recorded in 2022 after refusals to comply.