By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI—Riots, unrest and violence have spread to several major cities in France after the deadly police shooting of a teenage Muslim boy of Algerian origin at a traffic junction in a suburban area of Paris. The 17-year-old boy, identified as Nahel Merzouk, was fatally shot by a police officer on June 27 when he failed to stop his car, which was spotted in another lane meant for buses.
Two police officers tried to stop the car in a traffic jam in the suburb of Nanterre in western Paris. When Nahel, who was driving the rental car allegedly without a licence, made an attempt to get away, one of the police officers fired at close range through the driver’s window. Nahel died from a single shot through his left arm and chest. The 38-year-old officer responsible for the shooting has since been detained and is facing charges of voluntary homicide.
Protests erupted across France following the Nahel’s death, which the public at large attributed to the excessive use of force by the police. Since June 27 night, cars and public buildings have been set on fire and clashes have occurred between the policemen and enraged protesters who have taken to the streets. Hundreds of rioters were arrested and about 45,000 police personnel were deployed in the cities which witnessed violence.
While the protesters erected barricades, lit fires and shot fireworks at the policemen, the latter responded with tear gas and water cannons. A large number of people as well as policemen were injured as the government struggled to restore order amid the continuing unrest. The teenage boy’s murder led to outrage especially in the wake of continuous complaints of racism in the law enforcement agencies.
Nahel’s death in the shooting incident was perceived as a negative fallout of France’s police structures and methods and is another chapter in a long and traumatic story of discrimination against Muslims and other communities who have descended from post-colonial immigration in the country. The protesters carried within them fear and rage, which was the result of several decades of accumulated injustice.
The shooting of the Muslim teenager, caught on video, has revived the long-standing complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities about police violence and racism in France. There is a perceptible anger in the country’s poorest suburbs, where inequalities and crime are rife and French leaders have failed to tackle apartheid, which has had geographical, social and ethnic repercussions.
On early Sunday morning, the rioters rammed a car into the home of the Mayor of L’Hay-les-Roses, a town south of Paris, injuring his wife and one of his children. Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun tweeted that it was an “assassination attempt” and his wife and one of his children were hurt in the incident. He said the rioters had set fire to the car to burn his house, inside which his wife and two young children were sleeping.
In addition to the condemnation of the police shooting by several countries and international organisations, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has criticised French policing and described the shooting as a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement.
French President Emmanuel Macron has appealed for peace and termed Nahel’s death as unforgivable and inexplicable. He also said that violence against police stations, schools, town halls and against the Republic was unjustifiable. Macron said in a message posted on his official Twitter account that he would ask social media companies to take down inflammatory messages and sensitive footages of rioting and ask for those spreading such messages to be identified.
Nahel, the only child of a single mother, had been working as a takeaway delivery driver and played rugby league. He had no criminal record, though the traffic police had slapped the charges of violation of rules on him. He was part of an integration programme for teenagers struggling in school, run by an association called Ovale Citoyen, and was enrolled in a course to become an electrician. The programme was aimed at getting people from deprived areas into apprenticeships.
Tension continued to prevail in central Paris and sporadic clashes were reported from the Mediterranean cities of Marseille and Nice and the eastern city of Strasbourg after the burial of Nahel’s body at Mont Valerien cemetery in Nanterre on Saturday. A huge crowd gathered in a tense atmosphere, while the Salat-ul-Janazah (funeral prayer) was held at the grand mosque in Nanterre. Hundreds of people lined up to enter the mosque, while the volunteers in yellow vests stood guard and some of the mourners chanted “Allah-o-Akbar”.
The unrest has raised concerns in several countries, as France will be hosting the Rugby World Cup and the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. Britain and other European countries have updated their travel advice to warn tourists to stay away from areas affected by the rioting. The violence has also had a major impact on cultural events in France with singer Mylene Farmer forced to cancel stadium concerts and French fashion house Celine cancelling its menswear show in Paris scheduled for the week-end.
France’s Muslim population, which is the largest in Europe, has been facing discrimination for several decades because of the changes made to legislation, policies and court procedure in a manner making the daily life difficult for the community. The anti-separatism law introduced by the French government in 2021 has systemically obstructed religious freedom and Islamic practices and led to the closure of mosques and madrasas, harassment of Imams and the closure of businesses run by Muslims.
France was identified as one of the most Islamophobic countries last year, as per the European Islamophobia Report-2022 co-edited by Enes Bayrakli. A large number of Muslim professionals are leaving the country because of the lack of religious freedom. During the last five years, young graduated Muslims have immigrated to the U.S. and Canada and they have recently started leaving for countries such as Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar for a better life and for practising the religion peacefully. Activists in France have opined that the government, instead of curbing Islamophobia, will enforce strict laws and policies for Muslims in the future.
