Is France about to see a repeat of the riots that set the country ablaze in 2005 for three long weeks? As the Paris region was about to experience its third night of riots, this is the question that the entire French political class was asking itself, three days after the death of Nahel, 17, killed by a policeman in Nanterre while he refused to stop at the wheel of a car he was driving without a licence.
Thursday, the fear of a changeover seemed tangible while an exceptional force of 40,000 police officers (four times more than the day before) was deployed in the suburbs of Île-de-France and the large cities of the country to avoid a new rioting night. As in 2005, all law enforcement vacations were canceled and even helicopter patrols were planned.
During the day, the main sovereign ministers were dispatched to the disaster sites in an attempt to calm things down. In the morning, President Emmanuel Macron described the violence of the previous night as “unjustifiable”. An intervention which contrasted with that of the day before when he had judged “inexplicable and inexcusable” this police shooting, adding that “nothing justifies the death of a young person”. Remarks applauded by the deputies on the left, but received by the police as a denial of the presumption of innocence while the investigation has only just begun.
“The police kill! »
“Police murderers! chanted the demonstrators in the streets of Nanterre. It was in an atmosphere of extreme tension that a “white” march in honor of Nahel took place on Thursday. Before scuffles broke out at the end of the procession, several thousand people nevertheless marched peacefully through the streets of this western suburb of Paris largely inhabited by a population of North African immigration.
At the head of the procession, in front of the Pablo-Picasso city, near which the tragedy took place, Nahel’s mother waved her fist and wore a t-shirt on which one could read “Justice for Nahel”. “The police kill! resumed the placards. Words identical to those of an old tweet of the leader of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. In the crowd, we recognized Assa Traoré, the sister of Adama Traoré, who died during an arrest in 2016. Rather than a “white” march, she had called for a “revolt” march. This is probably what the young hooded people had understood who threw stones at the police at the end of the procession while the panicked inhabitants tried to put their car away for fear that it would be set on fire. During the demonstration, journalists from BFMTV claimed to have been prevented from doing their job, one having even been, according to them, threatened with having her throat cut.
” Voluntary homicide “
In the morning, the Nanterre prosecutor, Pascal Prache, gave an update on the investigation. He said that on Tuesday morning, Nahel had been chased by two police officers on a motorcycle after driving a rental car for two hours without a license and endangering the lives of a pedestrian and a cyclist in particular. The police tried twice to immobilize him, in vain. No weapons or narcotics were found on board. At the heart of the many hot reactions is a video in which we see a policeman pointing his gun and shooting, although we still do not know anything about what was said and happened in this car before the policeman pressed the relaxation.
In their defence, the police claimed that, trapped along a wall, they felt threatened and feared being hit when the car suddenly started again. They also invoked the possibility that the car hit a person in its escape. According to lawyer Laurent-Franck Lienard, his client wanted to shoot Nahel in the legs and he was destabilized by the car’s sudden departure.
Explanations which however did not convince the prosecution, according to whom “the conditions for the use of the weapon are not met”. Rarely, the police officer indicted for intentional homicide was remanded in custody pending the appointment of a prosecutor. A choice motivated by “political and media pressure and the extent of the urban violence in progress”, according to Grégory Joron, boss of the SGP Police-Force Ouvrière union.
The event hardly surprises the specialists since refusals to comply have been on the rise in France for ten years. 27,206 occurred in 2021, figures show road safety. The following year, during these traffic checks, 13 people were killed by the police. French police only use their weapon in these circumstances in 0.5% of cases, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said last September. At 17, Nahel was not his first refusal to comply. He had been indicted for the same reason no later than the weekend before the tragedy. According Le Figarohe had been the subject of twelve arrests for various offenses.
Several elected officials incriminate the law passed in 2017 which authorizes the police to open fire when they cannot otherwise immobilize cars “whose drivers do not obey the stop order and whose occupants are likely to perpetrate, in their escape, attacks on their life or on their physical integrity or on those of others”. A wording deemed too vague.
Throughout the day, witnesses described the riots from Wednesday night to Thursday as a veritable escalation of violence. In several suburbs, after midnight, the rioters gave way to quasi-professional, hooded and well-armed groups. Near Lille, the town hall of Mons-en-Baroeul was reduced to ashes, while in Val-de-Marne, hooded individuals even tried to escape prisoners from Fresnes prison. Police officers have also been attacked in the early morning on their way to work.
Exceptional violence
These riots largely overflowed the Paris region, setting fire to districts of Lille, Amiens, Lyon and Toulouse. The demonstrators mainly attacked public facilities such as schools, town halls, libraries, trams and more than a dozen police stations. In Viry-Châtillon, young people took a bus hostage and made the passengers get off to set it on fire.
“We have never reached such a level of violence,” said Reda Belhaj, spokesperson for the police union SGP Police in Île-de-France. The situation is much more serious than in 2005, according to the president of the Center for reflection on internal security, Thibault de Montbrial, who spoke on CNews. This time, “we are dealing with people who are very well organized […] The situation is extremely serious, we are at a crossroads”.
Despite the requests of right-wing elected officials, Gérald Darmanin refused to invoke the state of emergency. In 2005, it took twelve days for the government to resign itself to it. No curfew either, even if buses and trams were not to circulate Thursday throughout Île-de-France from 9 p.m. “It is not the thugs who are going to win”, declared the minister, before adding that “it is the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods who are affected” by this violence and that “the professionals of disorder must go home “.
In 2005, it was the accidental death in Clichy-sous-Bois of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré that sparked the fire. The two teenagers had hidden in an electrical transformer as they were chased by the police, who were absolved of any blame. These three weeks had resulted in 3,000 arrests, 9,000 cars burned, three dead and 217 police officers injured.