2023-11-19 22:03:04
Usually, Nelson Mandela Square, a concrete slab surrounded by roadways in Nanterre, attracts few crowds. But on Sunday, November 19, in the afternoon, some five hundred people, according to the police headquarters, gathered there to protest against the release, a few days earlier, of the police officer responsible for the fatal shooting of Nahel M . in June. The location is doubly symbolic, because it is a few meters from the court, but also from the pole where the car driven by the teenager crashed after he was hit.
Perched on a bench in front of an annex of the court protected by a few police officers, Mounia, the mother of Nahel M., shared her incomprehension at the decision of the investigating judges to end the pre-trial detention of the police officer responsible for the shooting – who remains under investigation and under judicial supervision. “In the morning, when I wake up, I no longer have [la] voice [de mon fils], (…) I no longer have [son] smile, she said with tears in her eyes. [Le policier]he took two lives, he killed me too”. For an hour and a half, Nahel’s friends, relatives of other people who died as a result of police intervention and community and political figures spoke one after the other – interventions between which the crowd chanted « Justice pour Nahel » et ” No justice, no peace “.
Among the speakers, Rose Ameziane, president of the Movement for the Emancipation of Territories association. “For some French people, [la mort de Nahel] is just a news item, she declared. But all the young people here, who cry out their pain, know that they can be next”. Forty years after the March for Equality and Against Racism, in reaction to several racist crimes in the 1970s and 1980s, the young woman regrets that the situation has not improved. And to call for action: “It is unacceptable that in forty years we are still talking about it. The future is in your hands, you have no right to move on. »
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“Injustice has always been there”
A speech that touched Saida, 70 years old, keffiyeh around her neck, and her friend, Assma, 68 years old, who came from Paris. This demonstration against “police racism” is far from being their first, they explain, but they remain “outraged that nothing is changing”even if “at their age, there’s not much left to do but demonstrate”.
On the bench which served as a platform, there were numerous calls for political action. “What we are asking today is that measures finally be taken (…) like the total overhaul of the police system, declares Mornia Labssi, labor inspector and member of the CGT. To young people, I tell them “Take the ballot boxes, get involved in politics””. Two La France insoumise deputies from Seine-Saint-Denis, Jérôme Legavre and Thomas Portes, took the floor to express their ” support “ to the family and present their future bill “aiming to repeal article L.435-1 of the internal security code” which since 2017 has allowed police officers to shoot in the event of a refusal to comply, particularly when the driver ” is susceptible “ to put them in danger.
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