Always quick to denounce the political instrumentalization of its opponents, the left did not hesitate to react to the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old teenager killed on Tuesday by a police officer after refusing to comply in Nanterre, near Paris. La France insoumise was quick to question the police. “This uncontrolled police force discredits the authority of the state. It must be completely overhauled,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon tweeted on Tuesday. “The death penalty no longer exists in France,” added the former leader of La France insoumise. “No policeman has the right to kill except in self-defense. If it was a refusal to comply by polluters or tax emigrants, we wouldn’t ask the question,” he added.
Several NUPES deputies also denounced a return to the “death penalty” after the police officer shot the teenager. “A refusal to comply cannot be a death sentence. For no one. Never,” EELV MP Sandrine Rousseau wrote on Twitter.
“Refusal to comply does not give a license to kill”, for his part tweeted the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure, while the president of the LFI group in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, accuses the “Cazeneuve law” of having “created a license to kill”. This law of February 28, 2017, carried by the former Minister of the Interior and Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, allows the police to shoot in the event of refusal to comply and self-defense.
“The parliamentary group of La France Insoumise-Nupes is tabling a bill to repeal the version of article 435-1 from” the Cazeneuve law, Mathilde Panot announced on Thursday, after Jean-Luc Mélenchon himself declared that “former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve’s ‘license to kill’ law must be repealed”.
As violence erupted in some working-class neighborhoods in response to Nahel’s death, the former leader of La France insoumise added fuel to the fire on Thursday. “The guard dogs are ordering us to call for calm. We call for justice,” he tweeted, before calling to “suspend the murderous cop and his accomplice who ordered him to shoot.”
“Calm cannot be decreed, it is built,” responded EELV national secretary Marine Tondelier. “Without justice and without truth, there will be no peace. It’s not a threat, it’s the facts,” she tried to explain.
Insoumis MP Carlos Martens Bilongo was attacked on Wednesday evening when he came “in support” of the inhabitants of Nanterre. In a video posted on social media, one of them hits him on the head, while another threatens to “start him off”.
This Thursday, Éric Coquerel, who last October denounced the “indecent political recovery” after the murder of Lola, calls for a number of “political and non-repressive responses” after Nahel’s death. “Justice for Nahel and all young people killed by the police, repeal of the right to use a weapon when refusing to comply, recognition of police violence suffered by neighborhoods, police overhaul and anti-discrimination emergency plan “, he claimed on Twitter.
The ex-communist candidate for the presidency affirms for his part that a “refusal to comply must not lead to death”. “The investigation now open must establish the conditions for the use of the police officer’s weapon. Justice must be done,” he added. Fabien Roussel finally called for “calm and peaceful mobilization so that truth and justice are done”. Like all Nupes parties, he finally took part in the white march for Nahel this Thursday.