As of this week, a crowdfunding campaign set up by the French far right in support of the police officer who shot and killed Nahel M, a 17-year-old from Nanterre, has now surpassed €1.4m. Around the same time that Nahel’s killer’s fund passed the €1m mark, it was reported that at least 120 young people who had been arrested in the unrest unleashed by his death had already been sent to prison.
So far, this “swift, firm and systematic judicial response” to the riots, as demanded by the justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti, has been the only real response by the government to the unrest that has swept across French cities. Locals have been met with curfews and reduced transport in some cities, and in every cité where cars have burned and shops have been looted, the police presence has grown exponentially, with 45,000 officers deployed across France on Friday night.
All this is symptomatic of the French government’s extraordinary creativity in its efforts to steer away from the reason of the banlieues’ anger – the police killing of a teenager, shot at point blank range in broad daylight after “refusing to comply” with an order – and avoid questioning the brutality of its police.
Dupond-Moretti, whose own son was recently arrested for domestic violence, blamed the parents of the rioters: “Each time there are parents who are able to exercise their parental authority and don’t do so, there is a penal responsibility that must be applied,” he said. The president, Emmanuel Macron, blamed the riots on social media and video games, and the spokesperson for the French government offered his helpful analysis by estimating that the violence in the banlieues has “no political message”, adding: “It’s just pillaging.”
According to the Bondy Blog, a local media site covering the Paris suburbs, a judge in a trial of those arrested over the weekend said that the reasons for their actions were “completely futile”. The article noted: “He did not once pronounce Nahel’s name.” A lawyer told the Swiss newspaper Blick that he feared such rushed hearings were designed to “twist the procedures to punish, whatever the cost” and risked “feeding the social pressure cooker”. Another lawyer warned of “expedited justice”, with “heavy sentences” despite “barely 15 minutes to go over the facts”.
Meanwhile, the officer who shot Nahel has been suspended and is being investigated for “voluntary homicide”. His trial, if there is one, will not be held for months or years.
When the UN asked France to pay heed to deep issues of racism and discrimination within the ranks of the French police – which, in any healthy democracy, should be cause for alarm – the French authorities replied that “any accusation of racism or systemic discrimination by the police forces in France is totally unfounded”. This response came on the same day as the press release written by two of the most influential police unions, which described rioters as “savage hordes” of “pests”. Nothing to see here! Certainly not racism! The GoFundMe for the officer, which has acted as a barrel of gasoline being poured over an already sizeable blaze, was barely addressed by the authorities. The prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, declared that “it probably does not contribute to the appeasement” of the situation, which must qualify as the understatement of the century.
Calls to reform the French police have so far been ignored, despite being the only sensible way out of this hellish mess. “What should we do with the police” asks today’s edition of the daily newspaper Libération. A Green MP from the opposition has suggested a roadmap to an extensive police reform, which would include the creation of an independent body investigating the police, the end of war-grade weapons use by the police and – crucially – an independent audit of police racism. None of her proposals have been officially studied by the authorities so far. “Is the government scared of the police?” a journalist asked the housing minister, Olivier Klein, citing leftwing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who declared so on Sunday night. Klein stuttered in response: “No! Uh, the government, uh … The government works with the police, fortunately.”
Indeed, Macron’s regime has “worked with the police”, and ruled with its violence, since the start of the gilets jaunes crisis in 2018, during which 24 protesters lost an eye and five lost a hand to police weapons. Since then, climate activists, high school students, feminists, striking factory workers, rail workers, firefighters and the recent social movement against Macron’s pensions reform, which was forced through parliament without a vote, have all been repressed by police brutality. But according to Macron’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, “police violence doesn’t exist”. Last night, Darmanin and Macron went to meet Paris police officers on the ground to reiterate their support. The president praised the police’s “professionalism” and said: “We are with you.” Is Macron scared of the police? Or has he simply assessed the scales of power and decided that he would rather continue ruling with police violence instead of tackling it – even if that means setting the banlieues ablaze?
Pauline Bock is a French journalist based in Paris
