French police officer under investigation after teenager’s fatal shooting
The French police officer who fatally shot a 17-year-old driver who evaded a traffic stop in a Paris suburb has been placed under formal investigation for “voluntary homicide” and will soon appear before investigating judges.
“Given the investigation so far and information collected, prosecutors believe that the legal conditions for the use of the firearm have not been met,” Pascal Prache, the prosecutor for Nanterre where the incident occurred, said at a press conference on Thursday.
Prache said he had requested that the unnamed officer who shot the teenager be placed in pre-trial detention, although that decision will be made by the investigating judges, who will also determine whether charges will be filed.
The formal investigation was announced after the authorities questioned a passenger who had been travelling in the teenager’s car and the two police officers involved in the incident. The officers both said they feared that the car posed a threat to themselves and others.
France is on edge after the killing of the driver, named Naël, who was driving without a licence when he accelerated away from police at a traffic stop. The death of the teenager, who was of North African origin, has sparked anger in the ethnically diverse areas outside the French capital and elsewhere where it was seen as another example of police brutality.
Clashes erupted for a second night on Wednesday and protesters burnt cars, built barricades, and engaged in skirmishes with police. The unrest started in Nanterre and around Paris but overnight spread to other cities and smaller towns. About 150 people were arrested with 2,000 police officers deployed across the country.
Mayors from small towns and suburbs, including near Lille in northern France and Dijon in the east, reported incidents of people setting fire to government buildings. A local court in Asnières was set ablaze and a police investigation has been opened.
French president Emmanuel Macron called a crisis meeting of ministers on Thursday morning.
“The past few hours have been marked by scenes of violence against police stations but also against schools, city halls and so ultimately against institutions and the republic, and these can absolutely not be justified,” Macron said as he opened the meeting at the interior ministry in Paris.
He added that a planned march called for Thursday afternoon by the teenager’s grieving mother, who has appeared in several videos on social media since the shooting, should be a moment for reflection and calm.
The posting of a video filmed by an onlooker on social media almost immediately after the shooting has raised the stakes and the emotional reaction. It appeared to show the police officer shooting into the driver’s side window as the car speeds off, despite no sign of any immediate danger to him or a second officer.
Lawyers for Naël’s family have called the shooting an “execution” and said they will file a lawsuit against the two officers involved.
Macron earlier called the death of the teenager “inexplicable and inexcusable”.
The interior minister said 40,000 police officers would be deployed nationally on Thursday night to try to quell unrest, including 5,000 for the Paris region.
The government is on high alert because a similar incident in 2005 exploded into three weeks of protests. Two teenagers, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, died while running away from the police in Clichy-sous-Bois, another low-income Parisian suburb.
The movement morphed into a broader critique of the longstanding problems of high unemployment and crime plaguing the low-income communities around Paris. Such areas are home to many immigrants and their descendants, who face discrimination in employment and housing despite being French citizens, according to government studies.
Politicians from across the political spectrum have seized upon the shooting of the teenage driver.
Leftwing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon repeated his frequent criticism of heavy-handed police tactics. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen slammed Macron for jumping to conclusions before the investigation into the events was complete, while the head of her party, Jordan Bardella, defended the police who faced “a climate of violence”.
Thirteen people died in France last year after refusing to stop at police traffic controls, compared with seven in 2021, although the overall number of stops has also risen sharply, according to police figures. Some died because police shot them and others because of accidents as they fled.
Source: Financial Times
