This Is How Nahel’s Killing Re-Shed Light on Police Racism in France

For the sixth day in a row, angry reactions continue to the killing of a teenager by a police officer in Nanterre, in the western suburb of Paris, on the morning of June 26, 2023, on the grounds that he did not comply with a traffic stop, according to press reports.

The streets in many cities of the country, especially in Paris, are still witnessing massive protests, violence, and riots, despite the deployment of armored vehicles and special teams and the implementation of a night curfew in about 20 cities, in conjunction with the arrest of thousands of people across the country by the police, on the pretext of disturbing public order.

While the French government held an emergency meeting to study options for dealing with the crisis, President Emmanuel Macron cut short his visit to Brussels to attend the European Union summit and returned to Paris on June 30 to study the situation.

Many human rights groups, inside and outside France, confirm the existence of systematic racism within the law enforcement agencies in France, but Macron denies this, knowing that the French government had pledged in 2020 not to tolerate racism within law enforcement agencies.

A spokesman for the National Police said Nahel’s killing was the third fatal shooting during traffic stops in France so far in 2023, while the year 2022 witnessed about 13 killings of this kind, and most of the victims of these incidents were of Arab or Black origin, according to Reuters statistics.

Observers say that these protests threaten to divide French society between citizens of French origin and citizens of immigrant origin, especially the new generations.

 

A Racially Motivated Crime

The killing of a French teenager of Algerian origin named Nahel M. (17 years old) at the hands of a French police officer caused the demonstrators to take to the streets of all cities of the country, and hundreds of police stations and government buildings were burned by the protesters.

Nahel’s mother expressed her belief that the incident was racially motivated, telling France 5: “I don’t blame the police, I blame the policeman who killed my son.”

“The policeman saw an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life,” she said.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the France Independence Party, criticized what he described as the government’s security escalation, referring to the great means it adopted to quell the riots, according to a France 24 report.

As for the leader of the Socialist Party in France, Olivier Faure, he said: “Refusing to stop does not give you a license to kill. All the people of the Republic have a right to justice.”

Most of the French newspapers dealt with the violence that France experienced due to the killing of the teenager, talking about the roots of the crisis between the police and the victim, the failure of successive governments to reform this institution linked to powerful unions, and the impact of this issue on the popularity of the French president.

In a country that suffers from regular outbreaks of unrest that often lead to calls for rioters to be cracked down, it can be difficult to criticize the police, who are under pressure and are losing a number of their personnel, as reported by Reuters.

However, experts say the authorities can no longer turn a blind eye to accusations by rights groups of rampant racism within the police force, racial profiling, and issues related to recruitment, training, and police doctrine.

In June 2020, former Interior Minister Christophe Castaner prepared plans for police reform, which included a ban on choking people during arrests, reform of the police oversight body, and implementation of a zero-tolerance policy for racism within the police.

This sparked a protest from the police unions, and a month later, a cabinet reshuffle was issued, stipulating the appointment of Gerald Darmanin instead of Castaner.

About that, said Franck Louvrier, a former communications adviser to ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy when he was the interior minister: “Either you support the police, or you run into trouble.”

Earlier this year, Darmanin’s proposal to reform the Police Investigation Branch sparked outrage within the police establishment, leading to several strikes at a difficult time for the government, especially as demonstrations erupted against the government’s plans to change the pension rules.

In a related context, the United Nations did not hide its concern about Nahel’s killing at the hands of the French police and urged Paris to address the issues of deep racism in law enforcement agencies.

“This is a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR office, told a press conference.

“Any allegations of disproportionate use of force must be swiftly investigated,” she added.

The words of Ms. Shamdasani added to the confusion of the French authorities, which took the initiative to acquit themselves of the charge of racism, to prevent the interpretations that this official UN position could include, especially relying on it as an excuse to attack France by various organizations and jurists.

The Interior Ministry and police unions said there were only sporadic cases of racism, denying that it was systemic or widespread.

An Elysee spokesperson emphasized that this was an individual act that does not represent the police at large, while the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement that any accusation of systemic racism or discrimination by the police in France is totally unfounded.

After the Yellow Vests crisis of 2018-2019, which saw violent protests and police repression for months, there was renewed criticism of the police’s doctrine as well as its plans.

The rise in fatal shootings by French police over the past few years has been linked to amendments made by the French government to the traffic code in 2017, which expand the circumstances under which a police officer is allowed to shoot.

On its part, France’s Human Rights League (LDH) called for the repeal of the law that allows police to shoot drivers who do not comply with orders.

A study by French researchers found that shootings of drivers by French police increased five-fold after the passage of the General Security Act that came into force in 2017, in response to a terrorist attack in Nice in 2016.

Previous studies have shown that there is widespread racial bias in the French police, targeting Arabs and blacks in particular.

In 2020, the Ombudsman for Human Rights in France found that young people who identify as Arab or black are 20 times more likely to be profiled and stopped by the police.

 

A State of Emergency

In a related context, a number of French politicians called for imposing a state of emergency to stop the riots, but the government has not yet resorted to this decisive measure that allows it to take exceptional steps, although it says it does not rule out imposing them later.

In turn, Elysee said that all necessary decisions will be taken to control security in the country after unrest, chaos, and violence escalated in an unprecedented way.

Authorities stated that 249 policemen nationwide were injured in the clashes, and Darmanin said that rioters attacked 79 police stations and 119 government buildings, including 34 town halls and 28 schools, noting that he had deployed 45,000 policemen in an attempt to quell the unrest.

Instead of quelling the anger of the protesters by pursuing appropriate punitive measures against the policemen involved in the crime, the positions of the French president fueled the protests.

In a speech delivered during a crisis meeting of his government, Macron announced the deployment of additional reinforcements to control the protests taking place in the country, according to France 24, calling on social media platforms to delete sensitive scenes of riots.

Macron also said that video games and social networking sites are behind the violence by teenagers as they imitate electronic adventure games.

Following Macron’s statements, billionaire Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, imposed new requirements and restrictions on his site’s users, as he decided that unverified accounts should benefit from only 600 tweets, and 300 tweets for new accounts.

Activists linked Elon Musk’s decisions, restricting the visual content of activists and limiting the visibility of tweets, and what is happening in France, and Macron explicitly accusing social media of being responsible for the spread of violence due to his inability to control it.

The great impact of the protests in France reached its global impact and made some countries, such as Britain and Norway, warn citizens against traveling to France; while Germany expressed its concern about the violent incidents in France, it indicated that the French authorities clearly condemned the killing of the young teenager.

 

Systematic Racism

The unrest in French cities brought back memories of the riots that shook the country in 2005, lasted for three weeks and forced then-French President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency.

It was then that the spark of violence broke out in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois and spread across the country after the death of two young men who were electrocuted at a power substation while trying to hide from the police.

In turn, Paris-based journalist Mahran Homsi explained in a statement to Al-Estiklal that “racism in the French police’s dealings with citizens on the basis of color and race is the reason behind the angry protests and riots in France.

“However, it seems that Macron and his government decided to deal with the situation on the security front rather than seeking to address the root causes of the problem, as demanded by human rights organizations,” he said.

Mr. Homsi also pointed out that there are 3 possible scenarios for the way these protests will end, indicating that the protests may subside on their own with severe and swift punishment being taken against the policeman who killed Nahel.

Concerning the second scenario, the journalist noted that there is a hidden conflict between generals in the French army and Macron due to the recent orientations of the French president, adding that the increase in violence and chaos doubles the possibility of a military coup, assuming that this is what prevented Macron from declaring a state of emergency during the past days.

As for the third scenario, according to Mr. Homsi, it is the outbreak of a civil war. Although it is considered the weakest possibility given the strictness of the arms laws in France that prevent the general population from owning weapons, he noted that Elon Musk implicitly suggested this scenario in a tweet he recently posted on his account.