A cyclist passes, in Nanterre, northwest of Paris, on June 6, 2024, in front of a fresco in tribute to Nahel, killed at 17 last year by a police officer during a check (AFP / Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT)
A year later, a march in tribute to Nahel, killed at the age of 17 on June 27, 2023 by a police officer during a check, is being organized on Saturday in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine), an affair which had provoked several days of riots and become a symbol of the fight against police violence.
The march will start at 2 p.m. from the Charles de Gaulle esplanade, a few hundred meters from the Pablo Picasso district, where the teenager lived. The procession will then follow Pesaro Boulevard before reaching Nelson Mandela Square, where Nahel died.
“It will be a silent march, where I will make a short speech,” Mounia Merzouk, Nahel’s mother, declared on RTL on Thursday. She will talk about her son, “what he was like” and how “a grieving mother” lives.
Some 500 to 800 people are expected, according to a police source, with no risk of any particular disturbance expected. This demonstration was the subject of a declaration to the prefecture, according to the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture.
According to elements of the investigation, following a chase, the vehicle driven by Nahel was stopped by traffic. A first police version, according to which the young man drove towards the biker, was quickly refuted by a video of the scene posted on social networks.
The two police officers can be seen on the side of the vehicle, pointing their guns at the driver. One of them shoots him as the vehicle starts up again. The car then crashes into a concrete block a few dozen meters away.
The police maintained that they were in danger of death because they were trapped between the car and a wall.
General view of the Pablo-Picasso district in Nanterre, in the northwest suburbs of Paris, June 6, 2024 (AFP / Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT)
Florian M., a 38-year-old police motorcyclist at the time of the events and charged with murder, was placed in pre-trial detention for five months. He was released and placed under judicial supervision in November after several requests from his counsel.
A reconstruction of the facts took place on May 5: in the presence of their lawyers, the police officer who shot, his colleague present that day and several witnesses compared their statements, in particular to establish whether Florian M. was in danger of death.
A woman brandishes a banner “Justice for Nahel” in Nanterre on June 27, 2023 as cars burn during a march in tribute to Nahel, killed at 17 last year by a police officer (AFP / Bertrand GUAY)
Nahel’s death led to riots of exceptional magnitude throughout France.
Public buildings attacked, schools and courts burned, shops looted: a Senate report estimated that the damage caused by the riots, shorter but more intense than those of 2005, represents one billion euros.