On Avenida Pablo Picasso in Nanterre, amid the remains of burnt-out cars that are still smoking and where the smell of burning still smells, the figure of Munia rises above the crowd, mounted on a car in which the cry of war is shouted from the entire neighborhood: “Justice for Nahel”.
She is the mother of the 17-year-old boy who died on Tuesday after being shot by a policeman at a checkpoint in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. Last night, the epicenter of the riots, this noon thousands of people wrapped up the mother in a white march organized in memory of the minor which, two hours later, ended with riots on another avenue with an iconic name: Nelson Mandela Square.
“He was just a kid. We all loved him. That he was driving without a license? Yes. That he had skipped a control? Also. That does not give the right to kill a boy,” Jakoubi Mohamed cries through tears. He is a neighbor of the neighborhood and assures that he was next to the police checkpoint on Tuesday when an agent shot the young man.
“We have all grown up in the neighbourhood. We are French too, even though we are Muslims. We are French and we are also against violence. We are against it!” shouts this man, who comes with his son to the march.
“Nahel is everyone’s son, he is our brother, our grandson. That is why we are all here,” says Nayah, who has come from another nearby neighborhood to Nanterre to support Mounia. “There is no right, how people are treated in these neighborhoods. It is as if we were a sub-race,” says this engineer of Algerian origin who came to France 25 years ago because she was a feminist and “they began to kill women for it “. “Of course I’m French and I feel French,” she defends.
It is estimated that some 6,000 people attended. “Murderous police” and “there is no justice” the procession shouted as it advanced. Mounia has been applauded and supported by the neighbors, here and there. Like Fathma, who comes from Rouen, in Normandy. She has made the trip the bus. “It’s like it happened to my son. That’s why I came here,” she says.
“We are tired of being called ‘racailles.’ She says it in reference to the term used to call these neighbors from the suburbs, born in France but with parents or grandfathers of immigrant origin.
The neighborhood is traumatized by the death of the young man, but discontent comes from behind. Throughout the entire route of the march, there are hardly any shops or bars. The abandonment of these areas is palpable and the neighbors question the actions of the police. They feel discriminated against or stigmatized because of their origin.
“It’s as if we were second-class citizens. This murder is like that of George Floyd. It will mark a before and after,” says Nayah, referring to the African-American citizen who died in 2020 suffocated by a police officer. She is accompanied on the march by a former yellow vest. She participated in the protest movement that marked Macron’s first term. “There you could see how the police spend it. They beat us,” she denounces.
When the procession reached the Nanterre police prefecture, Nahel’s mother waved a flare high up, while the people cheered her, as if she were Liberty leading the people. At that point, already in Nelson Mandela Square, there have been strong moments of tension and the police have fired tear gas to disperse the protesters.
Several people have assaulted an optician, next to the commuter station. Minutes later the loot was shared, along with another shop window. Around six o’clock the tensions in the area continued.
Nanterre and other neighborhoods in France are preparing for the third night of riots. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has announced an unprecedented deployment to “restore republican order.” In total, 40,000 agents will be mobilized to try to control the riots, as announced by the minister. To compare: the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games was expected to mobilize 35,000.
In some neighborhoods there will be no transportation after nine (to avoid fires) and in others (Neuilly sur Seine or Clamart, on the outskirts of Paris) a curfew has been decreed, from eleven to six in the morning.
Several elite units had to be sent to Nanterre this afternoon, such as the intervention group of the gendarmerie, the Raid (the elite unit of the national police and the investigation and intervention brigade (BRI). The white march for Nahel, which began on Avenida Pablo Picasso, with hugs from everyone to Nahel’s mother, ended in Nelson Mandela Square, with clashes and smoke, mixed with fire and gases, covering the hives of buildings.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project