Shooting in France: a policeman accused of passing a teenager who stopped death

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By Catherine Armstrong, BBC News, Jun 29, 2023, 22:24 GMT

Updated 1 hour ago

Image source, Shutterstock

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Violence has erupted across France since a 17-year-old was killed during a traffic stop on Tuesday

A French policeman has been charged with murder and is in custody for killing a teenager near Paris on Tuesday.

The 17-year-old, NHL M, was hit at close range while he was driving and crashed shortly thereafter.

Anger over his death sparked violence across the country. On Thursday afternoon, a march led by the boy’s mother was marred by clashes.

In a third night of unrest, protesters were arrested in Lille and Marseille.

In the town of Nanterre, where the teenager was killed, a massive fire broke out on the ground floor of a building where a bank was located.

Videos and photos on social media also show piles of rubbish on fire in several places.

Bus and tram services in Paris and the wider region stopped running at 21:00 local time (19:00 GMT) in preparation for further violence. Some suburbs declared nighttime curfews.

Transport services were also disrupted in the cities of Lille and Tours.

About 40,000 police were deployed across France in an attempt to deal with the unrest, after cars and buildings were damaged in riots in several French cities on Tuesday and Wednesday night.

Gerald Darmanin, the country’s interior minister, said 170 officers were injured in the clashes on Wednesday night alone and 180 people were arrested.

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Thousands marched to demand justice for NHL M on Thursday

On Thursday afternoon, officers were also injured during violence in Nanterre that followed a largely peaceful rally calling for justice. It was attended by more than 6,000 people.

Elisabeth Borne, the French prime minister, said she understood the outpouring of feelings after the death of the 17-year-old, but condemned the riots.

“Nothing justifies the violence that occurred,” she said.

The teenager’s death has sparked a broader debate about the police force and the relationship between the authorities and those from the French peripheries, who feel cut off from the country’s thriving city centres.

“We have a law and a judicial system that protects police officers and creates a culture of impunity in France,” Nael’s lawyer, Yacine Bouzrou, told the BBC World Service’s “Newshore”.

But Nael’s mother said she did not blame the police in general, or the system, for the killing – only the officer who fired the fatal shot that killed her son.

The officer accused of killing him said he fired because he felt his life was in danger. His lawyer told French radio station RTL that his client had removed his firearm “in full compliance with the law”.

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Witness: They took my child – a mother of a teenager who was shot by the police

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