Fund-raiser for police officer who shot French teen reflects divisions
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The passenger of the car driven by 17-year-old Nahel M attending a hearing at a police station in Paris, on July 3, 2023.
PHOTO: AFP
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PARIS – A crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the family of the policeman who shot dead teenager Nahel M in France
The fallout from the death, and from the wave of rioting it triggered
President Emmanuel Macron hosted a meeting with 302 mayors of towns where rioting took place and told them violence was subsiding.
“Will the return to calm last? I would be prudent, but the peak that we experienced these past few days is over,” he was quoted as saying by a participant.
After listening to a range of views from the mayors, he said some humility was necessary as there was no consensus emerging on how best to respond to everything that had happened.
The fund-raising effort on behalf of the officer who shot dead Nahel M a week ago was launched on the GoFundMe platform by a far-right media personality Jean Messiha, who received more than 72,000 private donations.
Left-wing politicians have branded the fund-raiser as shameful, while the far right has defended a police force it says is a daily target for violence in the low-income suburbs that ring French cities. It is a debate that reflects the deep fractures running through French society.
“This police officer is the victim of a national witch-hunt and it is a disgrace,” Mr Messiha tweeted soon after launching the campaign.
The police officer has been charged with voluntary homicide and remanded in custody.
Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure called for the campaign for the officer to be shut down.
Fund-raising pledges for the family of Nahel stood at €352,000.
Police resentment
The June 27 shooting of Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian-Moroccan descent, unleashed violence on a scale that shocked France, before the police clamped down on the rioters, resulting in relative quiet over the past two nights.
The police made 72 arrests overnight, the Interior Ministry said.
What started as an uprising in the high-rise estates morphed into a broader outpouring of hate and anger towards the state, and opportunistic violence in towns and cities.
Rioters have torched more than 5,000 cars, looted shopping malls and targeted town halls, schools and state-owned properties considered symbols of the state.
Addressing lawmakers in Parliament, Ms Borne defended a tough law-and-order stance, saying the criminal justice system should ensure that even minor offences committed during the riots were prosecuted.
She also said that parents of rioters who were minors should receive fines and training on parental responsibility, and that the Justice Minister would imminently be sending out a directive to that effect.
The June 27 shooting of Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian-Moroccan descent, unleashed violence on a scale that shocked France.
PHOTOS: EPA-EFE
Responding to a left-wing opposition lawmaker who was calling for a clear condemnation of police violence and for a change to a law blamed by many police critics for a rise in the number of police shootings, Ms Borne accused the lawmaker of not respecting the values of the Republic.
Her speech did not address the deep vein of resentment towards law enforcement agencies in the poor and racially mixed suburbs of major French cities – known as banlieues – where Muslim communities of North African descent in particular have long accused the police of racial profiling and violent tactics. REUTERS
