Nahel’s Mother Leads Protest in Nanterre Against Police Violence and Injustice

A few hundred people gathered in the afternoon on Sunday at the site where Nahel was killed, the Place Nelson Mandela, in Nanterre, in the Paris suburbs, at the call of Mounia, the mother of the teenager, who had denounced "a real injustice" after the release under judicial supervision of the police officer who fatally shot her son. Among them were people who had suffered police violence, such as music producer Michel Zecler, as well as left-wing activists and mothers fearing that their children might suffer the same fate. "Justice for Nahel," the protesters chanted. Some expressed their consternation at the crowdfunding campaign launched by the far right to support the police officer’s family, which raised 1.6 million euros.

"This policeman killed my son. I no longer have his voice, his smile. I miss everything about my baby," Mounia, Nahel’s mother, was moved. "We don’t understand his release," said Nadia Essa, a resident of Nanterre. "It’s a bad signal sent to young people." She said she had refused to let her 17-year-old son, who has Moroccan roots, go out for weeks after Nahel’s death. "We are no longer reassured when we pass in front of the police," she added. "We all know someone in our family or entourage who has been affected by police violence, because we are Arab or black," deplored Ibrahim Assebbane, a 22-year-old computer science student from Nanterre.

The death of the young Nahel had triggered a week of riots all over France, notably in Lyon, Marseille and in the Paris suburbs. About a hundred town halls had been damaged. The damage will cost the insurers 650 million, their federation had estimated on July 11.

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