Death of Nahel: in the face of violence, Éric Zemmour calls for “fierce repression”

2023-07-01 05:30:58

Faced with a “State [qui] goes to bed”, the president of Reconquest, Éric Zemmour, defended on Friday the principle of a “fierce repression” against the perpetrators of the violence which set fire to several cities in France. “We need fierce repression, it is repression that scares us,” said the former far-right presidential candidate at the microphone of Europe 1. “We are in the prodromes of a civil war, that can be seen”, he added, evoking an “ethnic war”, “a racial war”.

“We can clearly see the forces involved, I actually think that we need someone determined and firm” at the head of power, he insisted. Degraded public buildings, looted stores, burned vehicles… Many cities in the Paris region and in the provinces woke up on Friday with the stigmata of a new night of violence, the third since the death Tuesday in Nanterre of Nahel, 17, killed by a policeman.

“The state is falling”

This violence, which recalls that of the 2005 riots, is “more serious”, estimated Éric Zemmour, because according to him the some 40,000 police forces deployed overnight from Thursday to Friday “are overwhelmed” and “have orders not to make contact”. “We are afraid that there will be deaths, we are afraid that there will be clashes which degenerate”.

“The state gives in, the state goes to bed,” he said. “There, all of France is affected because, for 20 years, we have distributed immigrants,” summed up the former far-right candidate. Many cities in the Paris region and in the provinces wake up Friday with the stigmata of a new night of violence, the third since the death Tuesday in Nanterre of Nahel, killed by a police officer.

The police carried out 667 arrests, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Emmanuel Macron will chair a new interministerial crisis unit on Friday at 1:00 p.m. in Paris, for the second time in two days.