A thousand people marched in Montpellier on Tuesday, white roses in hand, to pay their last respects to a teenager fatally mowed down by a driver during the celebrations of the World Cup semi-final between France and Morocco. After a prayer at the great Averroès mosque, near the Paillade district where the 13-and-a-half-year-old young man lived and where he was hit on December 14 by a driver who then fled, hundreds of people came. gathered at the beginning of the afternoon in the parking lot of a theater on the outskirts of the city.
“Respect”
At first sparse, the crowd quickly swelled to reach 1,000 people, according to the Hérault prefecture, when the procession headed silently towards the Grammont cemetery, about 700 meters away. The mayor of Montpellier, Michaël Delafosse, took his place in the second row, behind relatives of the teenager carrying a banner stamped with the words “Justice for Aymen”, between his photo and a dove of peace. Some participants, men and women mixed, brandished a rose, others raised their fists in sign of determination.
Nearly a week after the events, the driver of the vehicle, who fled after hitting the young Aymen in circumstances that remain to be clarified, is still actively sought. The teenager died shortly after his medical treatment. Outside the funeral home, his older brother once again called for “appeasement”to “prayer” and at “recollection”. “It takes a lot of patience”he added, before the coffin of the young man, covered with a green burial sheet, was buried in the Muslim square of the cemetery.
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“It happened with a lot of respect. It’s nice to see that gypsies have come to say they don’t agree with what happened.”, confided after the ceremony to AFP Hassan Khaldoune, an acquaintance of Aymen’s father. The driver, who has been identified, is a member of the community of travelers, present for decades in Montpellier. The day after the death of the teenager, scuffles took place in two underprivileged districts of Montpellier. Several garbage cans and a car were set on fire and an apartment was ransacked.