Macron to meet Mayors to calm chaos
Large crowds gathered outside town halls across France today to call for an end to almost a week of violent unrest engulfing the country, sparked by the fatal police shooting of a Parisian teenager last Tuesday.
Many of them gathered in the South Parisian suburb of L’Haÿ-les-Roses to express solidarity with their local Mayor Vicent Jeanbrun, after his house was attacked by looters, who fired rockets at his wife and children as they fled the scene.
The family of Nahel Merzouk, the 17 year-old of Algerian descent who was shot dead by a traffic policeman in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre last week, has made a similar plea for calm. His grandmother told reporters that they had wanted to honour his legacy through a peaceful march, not rioting and looting.
There is some sign of the violence subsiding. On Sunday night fewer than 300 cars were set on fire compared with almost 2,000 on Thursday, while around 150 people were arrested, compared with more than 700 the night before. Over 3000 protesters have been detained overall.
French President Emmanuel Macron met today with the heads of both houses of parliament to discuss plans to end the chaos and he will meet with the mayors of 220 towns and cities affected by the protests tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the policeman who killed Merzouk has been charged on two counts: voluntary manslaughter and lying in his initial account by claiming that Merzouk’s car had tried to run the police officers down.
A UN human rights office spokesman has insisted: “This is a moment for France to seriously address the deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement.”
Those on the left also point to estimates that as many as 68% of French police officers voted for far-right candidates in last year’s presidential election as evidence of widespread racism within the force.
Criticism is being directed too at a 2017 law – slammed as a “licence to shoot” legislation – which allows French police to use lethal force on individuals refusing to obey police traffic stops.
Those defending the 2017 legislation argue that it was needed to “protect officers” amid rising levels of anti-police animosity in the banlieues.
Starkly, Nahel’s grandmother has said she is “heartbroken” after a Gofundme page, set up by a far-right media commentator to support the policeman who killed her grandson, raised over €1 million from more than 40,000 people, dwarfing donations of €200,000 gathered for Merzouk’s family.
President Macron has reportedly said he wants to conduct a longer-term assessment of the factors that led to the unrest. Yet there is no sign so far that the government will accept the suggestion that Merzouk’s death is symptomatic of a wider problem within the country’s law enforcement.
“The case is against a police officer, not the police in general. This lumping of them all together is intolerable,” Dupond-Moretti, France’s Justice Minister, has insisted.
The violent nature of the response to the fatal shooting will almost certainly have only deepened the polarisation between those defending the country’s law and order and those calling for police reform.
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