More than 1,000 people gathered in Paris on Saturday afternoon, in memory of Adama Traoré and despite the ban from the police headquarters, while “citizen marches” marked by “mourning and anger” against police violence are organized in several other towns in France.
Assa Traoré, Adama’s sister and figure in the fight against police violence, announced that she would be present “Saturday at 3 p.m. Place de la République”, after the ban on this march initially planned in Persan and Beaumont-sur- Oise, in Val-d’Oise, in memory of his brother who died shortly after his arrest by the gendarmes in July 2016.
This announcement was quickly relayed by left-wing activists and deputies from La France insoumise, but Assa Traoré did not however directly call on his supporters to join her, which could have been likened to the organization of a wild demonstration. , therefore illegal.
Saturday afternoon spoke standing on a bench in the square, in front of several elected officials from La France insoumise and surrounded by a large police force. “We march for youth, to denounce police violence. We want to hide our dead”, she declared, in front of in particular the leader of the rebels in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, the deputies Eric Coquerel and Louis Boyard, wearing their tricolor scarf, like Sandrine Rousseau (EELV) . “We allow the march of neo-Nazis but we are not allowed to march. France cannot give moral lessons. Its police are racist, its police are violent,” Assa Traoré also said.
Shortly after, the police asked people to disperse and some jostling took place, while the demonstrators chanted “Justice for Nahel”, noted journalists on the spot, who saw people being fined. The demonstrators then left in a procession, calmly, towards Boulevard Magenta, noted Le Monde on the spot, to cries of “No peace, no justice” and “Justice for Nahel, justice for Adama”.
After a few tens of minutes, the police called for the dispersal of the gathering. After the last warning, the demonstrators, accompanied in particular by Danielle Simonet (LFI), Louis Boyard (LFI), or even Sandrine Rousseau (EELV), left in a procession on Boulevard Magenta in peace, to cries of “No peace , no justice” and “Justice for Nahel, justice for Adama”, found Le Monde on the spot.
“We had the last word,” said Assa Traoré, who climbed onto a bus shelter. “France must evolve with its people. Our dead have a right to exist. The “Justice and Truth for Adama” committee then called on the protesters to disperse.
Demonstration prohibited “in a tense context”
In its decree, posted online shortly after 10:30 a.m., the police headquarters justifies the ban on “an undeclared gathering presenting risks of disturbing public order”.
The decree, signed by the prefect of police Laurent Nuñez, recalls the “tense context” and the “five consecutive nights” of urban violence in the Paris region and in the capital, after the death of Nahel M., 17, killed by a policeman during a road check on June 27 in Nanterre.
The police headquarters thus takes up the same arguments which motivated the ban decision taken Thursday by the prefect of Val-d’Oise and confirmed Friday evening by the administrative justice for the march in Persan and Beaumont-sur-Oise. The urgent applications judges had justified their decision by “the context of the riots which followed the death of Nahel”.
The latter “considered that, although the violence has decreased in recent days, its extremely recent nature does not allow us to presume [not] that any risk of disturbing public order has disappeared”, had argued the administrative court of Cergy -Pontoise. The prefecture had asked “the organizers to respect this court decision and to call publicly not to go to the scene”. The interruption of train traffic on line H towards Persan-Beaumont from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. should, in any case, complicate the arrival of demonstrators.
“Grieving and Anger”
In a video message posted on Twitter and Instagram, Assa Traoré confirmed that “there will be no march [Saturday] in Beaumont-sur-Oise”.
“The government decided to add fuel to the fire” and “not to respect the death of my little brother”, she accused, citing “total disrespect” and calling it “a pretext” the argument brandished by the prefect of a shortage of law enforcement to secure the procession.
“These marches have always been peaceful. It is precisely the fact of banning it that can cause tensions, because people are angry, it must be understood, “commented on BFM-TV the deputy of Essonne Antoine Léaument (LFI ), then specifying in a tweet that he would go to Place de la République.
In total, a dozen deputies from La France insoumise who were to join the demonstration in the Oise, including the president of the LFI group in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, intend to go to Place de la République at 3 p.m., despite the ban, according to a party source. Elected environmentalists could also go there.
Thirty other demonstrations against police violence have been listed in France on an online map, from Lille to Marseille and from Nantes to Strasbourg.
Nearly a hundred associations, unions and political parties classified on the left, including LFI, EELV, the CGT and Solidaires, called for these “citizen marches”, to express “mourning and anger” and to denounce policies deemed “discriminatory” against lower-income neighborhoods. These organizations, mobilized “for the maintenance of public and individual freedoms”, demand “an in-depth reform of the police, their intervention techniques and their armament”.
Government spokesman Olivier Véran on Friday criticized organizations whose “only proposal”, according to him, is “to call for demonstrations (…) on Saturday in the big cities which have not yet recovered from the looting”. . He particularly pointed to the responsibility of elected officials, including those of La France insoumise, who had called to join the forbidden march of Beaumont, accusing them of stepping out “from the republican arc”.
Nahel’s death and the urban violence that followed – unprecedented since 2005 – cast a harsh light on the ills of French society, from the difficulties of working-class neighborhoods to the stormy relations between young people and the police.
Since June 27, more than 3,700 people have been taken into custody in connection with these riots, including some 1,160 minors, according to figures from the Chancellery, which reported on Friday nearly 400 incarcerations.
