March for Nahel Merzouk one year after his murder by French police | Protest news

The rally of honor takes place one day before the first round of early elections in France, in which racism will play a central role.

A year after a French teenager of North African descent was killed by a police officer, his mother led a march to pay her last respects to her son, ending at the site where he was gunned down without provocation.

Several hundred family members, friends and supporters gathered in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Saturday to commemorate 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, who was shot dead at point-blank range by a police officer during a traffic stop on June 27, 2023 – a murder that sparked shock and days of unrest across France.

His mother, Mounia, addressed the crowd and then burst into tears. Friends wore white T-shirts with Merzouk’s photo and residents of his housing project held a banner reading “Justice for Nahel.”

The march ended at the site where he was killed, and an imam sang and read a prayer. Although there was no police presence, organizers recruited guards to ensure the security of the event.

The march came at a politically fraught time, as hate speech mars campaigning for Sunday’s snap general election, and as an anti-immigration party – which wants to strengthen police powers to use their weapons and has historical ties to racism and anti-Semitism – is leading in the polls.

Merzouk’s mother asked politicians to stay away from the march to avoid tensions. “I don’t have Nahel anymore. I just want justice for my son,” she told the crowd.

Assa Traore, 39, who has been fighting for justice since the death of her brother Adama in police custody in 2016, said: “This march is a powerful symbol.”

“This means that history cannot be written without us. We, from the working-class districts, are the first victims of these elections. We recognized early on that the Rassemblement National and the far-right parties pose a threat to our country and will weaken it,” said Traore, who is from Mali.

“Racial profiling is our everyday life”

Al Jazeera’s Berard Smith reported in a Naterre report: “Nahel’s death fed the narrative that French police use excessive force and get away with it. The UN human rights commissioner’s office said the shooting was a ‘moment for the country to seriously address the deep-seated problem of racism and racial discrimination in the police.'”

On Sunday, French voters will head to the first round of elections for the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, in a vote that could produce the country’s first far-right government since the Nazi occupation in World War II.

Citing “security concerns,” especially in social housing and other impoverished areas of the French suburbs – the “banlieues,” the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) wants to give the police a new, specific legal status.

When police officers use weapons during an operation, they are “presumed” to have acted in self-defense. Currently, police officers have the same legal status as all French citizens and must prove that they acted in self-defense after firing a firearm.

Meanwhile, the left-wing coalition New People’s Front wants to ban the use of certain police weapons and disband a police unit that is notoriously violent.

“People fear a victory for the RN party. People from working-class neighborhoods are afraid every day that our sons, brothers or husbands will be killed. Racism and ethnic discrimination are our everyday lives,” said Traore.

“Loyalty conflicts”

On Friday, the RN faced new accusations of racism: a high-ranking parliamentarian said that a former education minister of Moroccan descent should never have been given the job because of her origins.

MP Roger Chudeau said the appointment of Najat Vallaud-Belkacem to the education portfolio in 2014 was “not a good thing” for France because she had “conflicting loyalties” due to her French and Moroccan citizenship.

However, these incidents have hardly harmed the popularity of the Rassemblement National.

Opinion polls suggest that the RN party could dominate the next parliament after the July 7 runoff and secure the post of prime minister. In this scenario, Macron would retain the presidency until 2027, albeit in a significantly weakened role.