2023-07-01 07:59:12
Regularly, during police violence or urban riots, parallels resurface between France and the United States, a land of recurrent conflagrations. While these two countries do not have a monopoly on days of tension, which can also erupt, for example, in the United Kingdom, there are enough points in common (use of firearms by law enforcement, accusation of racism, etc.) to give rise to more or less legitimate comparisons. This is also the case today with the death of Nahel, killed on Tuesday June 27 by a policeman, in Nanterre.
Road checks gone wrong
The first common point is the circumstances. Because, as in the Nahel affair, it is often during a roadside check that tragedies occur in the United States. This was the case in 2016, with the filmed death of Philando Castile at the wheel of his car in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Or the following year, with that of Cedric Mifflin, in Alabama.
« Across the Atlantic, there are fewer radars, explains Didier Combeau, specialist in the United States and author in 2018 of American fonts (1). So more police checks which, moreover, are sometimes encouraged by the cities to multiply the fines, as a federal investigation had shown after the tragedy of Ferguson, in 2014, and the death of Michael Brown.»
As a reminder, despite the mobilizations of recent years, in particular after the death of George Floyd in 2020, there are still around 1,000 victims of police violence per year in the United States (1,096 deaths in 2022, according to the countdown Washington Post). This statistic is out of proportion with the situation in France, even compared to the size of the population (5 times lower).
When the police open fire
For some commentators, the Nanterre tragedy is reminiscent of the United States and a form of “license to kill” granted to the American police. However, across the Atlantic, there is no national police (with the exception of the FBI, the only federal police force). The police depends on the municipalities or counties. There is the New York police force, the San Francisco police force… So there are not one, but 18,000 American police forces, with their own rules.
These rules govern the use of shooting by law enforcement. But it is true that in the United States, self-defense is very often recognized by the courts when a tragedy occurs. In a country where a lot of firearms circulate, the policeman can say he felt threatened, even though the facts will reveal, too late, that the victim was not armed.
In the Philando Castile case, the policeman who shot the stationary car at point-blank range was acquitted. Hence the importance taken by the Floyd case, during which at no time did George Floyd seem to threaten Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer. And its uniqueness: the policeman’s conviction did not lead to the changes many hoped for in police practices in the United States.
The issue of racism in the police
Another issue is that of the supposed racism of the police. Friday, June 30, the UN even invited itself into the debate in France. “Now is the time for the country to seriously address the deep-seated issues of racism and racial discrimination among law enforcement”said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the regular UN press briefing in Geneva.
It is in particular the question of systemic racism that fuels the debate, in France but especially in the United States. The Floyd case saw Black Lives Matter, a movement founded after the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, take off, exposing racism in American institutions. “ But it seems to me that the debate does not really take hold in France, where the question is approached more from the broader angle of the “suburbs” than through the prism of racism. “, believes Didier Combeau.
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