UPDATE: An online fundraiser for the family of the police officer who shot and killed a 17-year-old in the suburbs of Paris last week was closed at midnight on Tuesday, having collected more than €1.6 million in four days. It came after the family of the dead teenager said they had filed a legal complaint.
NOTE: This story was updated on 5 July with the news of the legal challenge and closure of the crowdfunding campaign.
The man behind the crowdfunding campaign, far-right media personality Jean Messiha, announced on Tuesday evening that he would be ending the appeal later that night. He called it "a historic symbol of national generosity".
Earlier that day, lawyers for the teenager's family had filed a complaint against Messiha for "organised fraud", according to documents seen by Le Monde newspaper.
Meanwhile a French MP, Arthur Delaporte of the Socialist Party, announced that he too had asked prosecutors to investigate under a French law that forbids fundraising to cover costs or damages resulting from criminal charges.
👉 Cagnotte en ligne en faveur d'un policier accusé d'homicide volontaire et initiée par l'extrême droite : je saisis ce jour la Procureure de la République au titre de l'article 40.
— Arthur Delaporte (@ArthurDelaporte) July 4, 2023
J'y développe les raisons pour lesquelles, cette cagnotte pourrait être considérée comme… pic.twitter.com/DwQbgA0gD4
In response, Messiha tweeted at Delaporte: "It will be closed tonight and you can't do a thing."
One week after teenager Nahel M was killed in the suburb of Nanterre, around 80,000 donations had been made to the GoFundMe appeal to support the family of his shooter, who has been charged with intentional homicide.
The fundraiser became a rallying cry for those who defend France's police force from accusations of institutional racism and abuse of power.
"Support for the family of the Nanterre police officer, Florian M, who did his job and is now paying a heavy price. Support him massively and support our law enforcement," the donation page reads, under a picture of the French flag flying by the Arc de Triomphe.
A fundraiser for the teenager's family, meanwhile, has raised around €400,000.
Within the rules?
Messiha launched an initial appeal on French fundraising site Leetchi, but it was quickly suspended. Messiha shut it down a few hours later after claiming that the platform required too much paperwork to prove that the money would go to the police officer's legal next of kin.
He promptly switched to GoFundMe, a US platform whose terms of service forbid raising funds to be used to pay the legal fees of people accused of violent crimes, or in support of behaviour that the site judges to reflect discrimination or abuse of power.
Several politicians and activists on the left have appealed to the site to take the crowdfunding campaign down, but GoFundMe refused. A spokesperson told French news agency AFP on Monday that the fundraiser did not break its rules, since the money is intended to benefit the family of the officer rather than the policeman himself.
But citizen activist group Sleeping Giants France, which campaigns against hate speech, disputed that argument. "How could you possibly ensure that none of the money raised goes towards his legal expenses?," it asked GoFundMe in a tweet thread accusing the fundraiser of inflaming tensions.
⚠️Dear @gofundme
— Sleeping Giants FR (@slpng_giants_fr) July 2, 2023
Could you pls urgently determine whether you find the French fundraiser "Soutien pour la famille du policier de Nanterre" to be unacceptable and objectionable, as per your ToS?!
Its sheer existence inflames the sentiment of injustice and furthers tensions
1/3 pic.twitter.com/8z5EpnyzVL
Under French law, fundraising is not allowed for the purpose of paying legal costs, fines or damages resulting from criminal cases. Doing so runs the risk of a €45,000 fine or six months in prison.
That law allowed a French court to shut down a 2019 crowdfunding campaign, hosted by Leetchi, for Christophe Dettinger, a former boxer who was convicted of beating up police officers during protest by France's Yellow Vest movement.
Government stays out of it
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Monday that, "if needs be", judges would rule on whether Messiha's fundraiser was legal – but that it wasn't up to the government to intervene.
Nonetheless, she added: "The fact that this collection was started by someone close to the far right no doubt does not help to soothe the situation."
Messiha is a former spokesperson for the far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour, and the crowdfunding campaign has been widely shared on far-right networks online.
But it has also found support in the mainstream. Éric Ciotti, president of the centre-right party Les Républicains, said he would consider donating: "I don't find it shocking that you would support the family of a police officer going through a difficult time right now," he told French news channel LCI.
Most of the donations, which range from €3,000 to €5, were made anonymously.
Nahel's grandmother has said that she is "heartbroken" by the support shown for the police officer.
It's not clear whether the families have signed off on either of the fundraisers supposedly for their benefit.
The crowdfunding campaigns have become a symbol of the way the incident has polarised France, political analyst Jérôme Fourquet told Le Monde newspaper. "Everyone is choosing a side," he said.
