French President Angry Over Police Shooting Of Teen, Says It Is Unjustifiable
French President Emmanuel Macron has described the second night of violence following the shooting of a teenage boy by police as “unjustifiable”.
Speaking at the start of a crisis meeting with ministers this morning, Macron denounced the attacks on state institutions. It comes after the President yesterday described the teenager’s death as “inexcusable”.
At least 150 people are arrested across France in a second night of violence triggered by the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old driver. The teenager, named as Nahel M, was shot at point-blank range as he refused a traffic stop and drove away.
In Nanterre, where Nahel was shot, vehicles were set on fire and police fired tear gas. In the Mons-en-barbel Suburb of Lille, people broke into the town hall and started fires.
The French interior minister calls it “a night of unbearable violence against symbols of the republic”.
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Nahel came from a French-Algerian family, a neighbour told Reuters news agency. Their tally found that most of those killed by police in traffic stops since 2017 were Blacks or Arabs.
Authorities have opened two separate investigations following the teen’s death – one into a possible killing by a public official, and another into the driver’s failure to stop his vehicle and the alleged attempt to kill a police officer.
Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez told French television station BFMTV that the policeman’s actions “raises questions”, though he suggested the officer may have felt threatened.
The 17-year-old’s family lawyer Yassine Bouzrou insisted that was an illegitimate defence, telling the same channel the video “clearly showed a policeman killing a young man in cold blood”.
He added that the family had filed a complaint against police for “lying” – after initially claiming the car had tried to run down the officers.
Another lawyer representing the victim’s family, Jennifer Cambla, told local media that nothing could justify what had happened, and described the death as an “execution”.
In a video posted on TikTok, Nahel’s mother Mounia urged people to join her on a march for her son.
“Come all, I beg you”, she said. “We will all be there.”
