FORGOTTEN BUSINESS. The Malik Oussekine case, this young innocent man who died under police baton blows

Paris, December 4, 1986. Tens of thousands of students from France gather in the streets of Paris to demonstrate against the Devaquet bill, which plans to select students for entry to universities. Between the signs “The students toast!” and “A Vaquet is fine, Devaquet we don’t want it“¸ the young people parade in a peaceful atmosphere. But the situation ends up degenerating. In the evening, the police face large groups of thugs. Result: 50 police officers injured, and at least two serious injuries among the The troublemakers withdrew to the Latin Quarter, while the students met at the Sorbonne. Finally, calm fell around the burnt cars. But the worst has not yet happened.

The following night, the evening of December 6, 1986, Robert Pandraud, Minister Delegate for Security to the Minister of the Interior, Charles Pasqua, gave the order to the motorized aerial policemen to chase down the last thugs. While a chase is being organized in the streets of Paris, the young Malik Oussekine, 22, leaves the jazz club on rue Monsieur-le-Prince. Arriving at the bottom of his building, the Franco-Algerian student meets Paul Bayzelon, a civil servant at the Ministry of Finance, who holds the door for him. Then the inconceivable happens. According to the official’s testimony, three CRS took advantage of the opening of the door to follow Malik and beat him with truncheons. “I didn’t do anything, I didn’t do anything”, yells the young student, in vain. Shocked, Paul Bayzelon tries to intervene, at the cost of several baton blows. Finally, the police end up leaving.

The symbol of an era

Transferred to Cochin hospital, Malik Oussekine died at 3:20 a.m. following a cardiac arrest. He suffered in particular from a periauricular hematoma, a suborbital hematoma and a fracture of the nasal septum, proof of the violence of the blows against him. On the morning of December 7, 1986, Tout-Paris learned of the death of Malik Oussekine. To general indignation, Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and his minister, Robert Pandraud, did not condemn the action of the police. In the columns of Le Monde, the latter even declares: “The death of a young man is always regrettable, but I am a father, and if I had a son on dialysis I would prevent him from fooling around in the night”, evoking the renal deficiency from which the young Oussédine suffered.

While in Paris, a million students take to the streets to pay tribute to Malik Oussdekine, the new symbol of the fight against police violence, the Minister Delegate Alain Devaquet presents his resignation and definitively renounces his reform. On January 27, 1990, Sergeant Jean Schmitt and peacekeeper Christophe Garcia, the two police officers responsible for the death of Malik Oussédine, were sentenced to a symbolic sentence: five and two years in prison, suspended.

The Oussedine affair adapted on Disney+ in 2022

Buried on December 20, Malik Oussekine rests in the Père Lachaise cemetery. On his grave, the words “They will be able to cut all the flowers, they will not prevent the coming of spring”. His story will soon be the subject of a mini-series for the Disney+ platform. Malik Oussekine will be played by Sayyid El Alami, who will star Kad Merad, Olivier Gourmet, Hiam Abbass, Slimane Dazi, Laurent Stocker and Mathieu Demy. Release expected in 2022.

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