Nehal Merzouk Religion, Wikipedia, Wiki
Nehal Merzouk Religion, Wikipedia, Wiki -: The 17-year-old kid who was shot and killed by a police officer after the worst riots in 18 years was laid to rest on Saturday as the French government got ready for fresh demonstrations.
Friends and family members attended a private funeral in Nanterre, where Nahel Merzouk was killed on Tuesday after being stopped by two motorcycle patrol officers.
In a time of unrest in the government, police shoot a youngster who requests a private funeral
A significant crowd gathered in front of the local mosque, and some of them followed the coffin to the cemetery while chanting, “Justice for Nahel.” The family’s solicitors had asked that the media stay away from the gathering since it was “a day for Nahel’s family” to mourn “with discretion.”
An official inquiry for voluntary homicide, or being charged in French, has been opened against a 38-year-old police officer. Due to the greatest challenge to the legitimacy of his centrist government, President Emmanuel Macron decided to postpone a two-day trip to Germany on Sunday. Macron made the decision after facing backlash for going to see Elton John play in Paris on Wednesday while the country burned.
After four days of increasing violence and theft that included attacks on public and private buildings, buses, trams, sports and recreation facilities, and schools, the administration held another crisis meeting on Saturday.
More than 230 buildings, including town halls, and 1,350 vehicles were set on fire on Friday night and early Saturday morning, according to the interior ministry of France. More than 1,300 people were jailed as a result. The average age of those jailed, according to the administration, was 17. Some of them were just 13 years old.
The government dispatched 45,000 police and gendarmes, 24 helicopters, and a number of armored cars overnight. In French media, shots of rioters dressed in all black and brandishing automatic weapons were presented.
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Lyon, where the violence, destruction, and looting were described by the mayor, Grégory Doucet, as “unprecedented,” on Saturday, was to receive a trained riot police squad.
Nahel, a French native of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was killed, and as a result, competing public and political opinions in France have been more radicalized. Police departments around the country have come under increasing criticism for their purportedly pervasive racism and their ruthless, oftentimes fatal, use of various weapons including rubber bullets and flash balls.
Nahel’s death in 2023 was the 21st fatal shooting by police during traffic stops in France. The majority of the casualties were North Africans or people of race.
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) criticized French law enforcement on Friday, saying the incident was “a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement.”
Nahel’s mother, Mounia, claimed that she was angry with the officer in question and not with the police as a whole. On French television, she declared, “A police officer cannot take his gun and fire at our children, taking our children’s lives.”
While politicians tried to stop the violence from spreading, Les Bleus, France’s national football team, urged calm. The national team issued a statement in which they stated that “the time of violence must end and be replaced by a time of mourning, dialogue, and reconstruction.” Team captain Kylian Mbappé was the voice behind the statement.
But the two biggest police unions in the nation, Alliance and Unisa, issued a fiery statement in which they denigrated the protesters as “savage hordes” and “pests” and issued a dire warning to the government: “Today the police are in a fight because we are at war.
An official inquiry for voluntary homicide, or being charged in French, has been opened against a 38-year-old police officer. Due to the greatest challenge to the legitimacy of his centrist government, President Emmanuel Macron decided to postpone a two-day trip to Germany on Sunday. Macron made the decision after facing backlash for going to see Elton John play in Paris on Wednesday while the country burned.
After four days of increasing violence and theft that included attacks on public and private buildings, buses, trams, sports and recreation facilities, and schools, the administration held another crisis meeting on Saturday.
Nothing “indicated,” a spokesperson for Elysée said, “that the police officer opened fire because the victim was foreign,” rejecting the idea that the shooting was racially motivated.
“A police officer has been charged with a crime, but this does not speak for the entire force,” the statement reads. It was one man’s act, not the institution as a whole, he said. Investigations into the incident are still ongoing, but it does not justify the recent spate of violence.
He asserted that this isn’t a rebellion taking place in specific neighborhoods but rather a young minority indulging in criminal conduct.
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