- By Mattea Bubalo and Robert Plummer
- BBC News
June 28, 2023
Updated 22 minutes ago
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Watch: What social media videos reveal about the death of a Parisian teenager
Thousands of additional security forces face a second night of unrest in France after a 17-year-old driver was shot dead by police during a traffic stop near Paris on Tuesday.
The teenager, named Nahel M, was shot at point-blank range as he drove off and crashed shortly after.
Paris police said they had contained “sporadic episodes” of new violence.
In Toulouse, protesters started a fire and threw stones at firefighters trying to put out the blaze.
Clashes also erupted between demonstrators and police in the northern city of Lille.
About 300 people gathered in the western city of Rennes to pay tribute to the teenager – many of whom also lit fires and were chased away by police to allow firefighters to douse the blazes, local media reported.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the shooting of Nahel was “unforgivable”.
However, his comments drew an angry reaction from police unions, who accused him of being hasty in condemning the officers involved.
The Alliance Police union called for a presumption of innocence until guilty, while rival Unité SGP Police also spoke of political interventions fueling “anti-police hatred”.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said he would take legal action against another group, the French police, after they published what he called an “unacceptable and abhorrent” tweet justifying the teenager’s killing.
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne also spoke up and said that the police intervention “obviously did not comply with the rules”.
Nahel’s mother Mounia said in a social media video they took the baby away from her and urged people to take part in a march to commemorate her son.
“He was just a kid. He needed his mother,” she said. “He kissed me goodbye in the morning and said, ‘I love you mom’.”
“An hour later I was told that someone had shot my son. What should I do? he was my life He was everything to me.”
The officer accused of killing him, who said he fired because he felt his life was in danger, is in jail on involuntary manslaughter.
Nahel, who a neighbor says is from a Franco-Algerian family, is the second person in France this year to be killed in a police shooting during a traffic stop. A record 13 people died this way last year.
Human rights groups have criticized an increase in police shootings since a 2017 law change that expanded the scope for officers to use firearms.
Citing official statistics, Le Monde newspaper reported that the annual number of shootings of moving vehicles has been consistently higher since the change.
Activist Rokhaya Diallo said on BFMTV that more gunfire means a higher risk of being a victim of police shooting, especially for people of color.
A Portal tally found that since 2017, the majority of victims of fatal police shootings at traffic stops have been black or Arab.
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Firefighters extinguish a burning vehicle in Nanterre after protests following Nahel’s death
According to French media, the police initially suspected that the teenager had driven his car towards them in order to injure them.
However, footage released online and confirmed by AFP news agency shows an officer pointing his gun at the driver through his window and appearing to shoot at point-blank range as he is about to pull away.
The agency also reports that in the video, a person can be heard saying, “You’re going to get shot in the head,” though it’s unclear who is saying it.
Two other people were in the car at the time of the shooting. One fled while another, also a minor, was arrested and detained by police.
“Nothing justifies the death of a young person,” President Macron told reporters in Marseille, calling for “calm for justice.”
“I want to express the feelings of the entire nation at what happened and the death of young Nahel and express our solidarity and the nation’s affection to his family.”
“We have a teenager who was killed. This is inexplicable and unforgivable,” he said, adding that the case was immediately referred to the courts, where he hoped the judiciary would “do their job quickly.”
The President’s remarks were intended to calm a potentially inflammatory atmosphere in Nanterre, near the La Défense business district and other Parisian suburbs, where Nahel’s assassination has sparked strong emotions.
Authorities have launched two separate investigations into the teenager’s death – one into possible killing by an officer and another into the driver’s failure to stop his vehicle and an alleged attempt to kill a police officer.
Paris Police Chief Laurent Nuñez told French TV broadcaster BFMTV that the officer’s actions “raise questions” but suspected the officer may have felt threatened.
The 17-year-old’s family lawyer, Yassine Bouzrou, insisted it was an improper defense and told the same broadcaster that the video “clearly showed a police officer killing a young man in cold blood”.
He added that the family had filed a complaint against the police for “lying”.