2024-07-25 06:13:05
“He didn’t have to kill my son, there were other ways to do it. A bullet? So close to his torso? (…). There are other ways to get them out (of the vehicle, editor’s note). Killing little ones like that… How long will it last? How many more children will leave?”, she said in a poignant testimony on the program “C à vous” on France 5.
She asked that justice be firm with her son’s murderer, that the sentence be commensurate with his sentence, and “not after six months, he (the police officer) is out.”
The comments by the boy’s mother come as the French police are accused by several organisations, particularly those defending human rights, of violence and racism.
Indeed, the UN asked France on Friday to seriously address the problems of racism and racial discrimination within its police forces, three days after the death of young Nahel.
“This is the time for the country to seriously address the deep-seated problems of racism and racial discrimination among law enforcement officers,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the regular UN press briefing in Geneva.
On the same day, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) accused France of “police brutality” and “indiscriminate arrests” during protests against the much-criticized pension reform.
Last May, the UN Human Rights Council called France to order regarding the human rights situation in the country, highlighting in particular attacks against migrants, racial profiling, police violence and excessive use of force by the authorities during demonstrations.
A few days earlier, the French Human Rights League (LDH) denounced an “authoritarian turn” in France and a “contempt” for parliamentary and social democracy, which now extends to fundamental rights.
The defense of freedoms has become the “hottest topic of the period” in France, while the freedom to demonstrate is called into question by the hardening of instructions given to the police and gendarmerie forces, including with regard to non-violent citizens, which results in serious injuries, mutilations and a toxic instrumentalization of the police forces, wrote Patrick Baudouin, president of the LDH and its presidents and honorary president, in a collective column published in the daily newspaper Le Monde.
Nahel, 17, was shot dead by a police officer during a traffic stop in Nanterre. An amateur video widely shared on social networks and then by the media showing a police officer shooting the minor at point-blank range contradicted the initial version of the police officer who shot him and his teammate and sparked indignation and anger in the country.
In the evening, violence between angry youths and the police broke out in Nanterre before spreading to other cities in the Île-de-France region and other towns across the country.
France experienced a new episode of urban violence on the night of Thursday to Friday, which resulted in 875 arrests throughout the country, according to a final report from the police.
2024-07-25 06:13:05