Amid the twisted and smouldering carcasses of burned-out cars, the stench of melted tarmac and smoke-blackened buildings, French housing estates were braced for more nights of rioting and soul-searching on fractured race relations and deep distrust of the police.
“There’s so much anger,” said Chakir, a 21-year-old youth worker, who had been awake until 5am on the streets of his housing estate in Roubaix, northern France, where more than 100 young people had lit firework rockets with cigarette lighters and thrown them at lines of riot police. They were protesting after the death of a 17-year-old boy, Nahel, of Algerian background, who was shot dead at close range by police at a traffic stop in Nanterre, west of Paris, on Tuesday.
The killing, captured in a video that went viral online, has sparked successive nights of clashes with police on estates across France and politicians feared that rioting would spread. “The police are supposed to protect us,” Chakir said. “But there’s a feeling nothing is protecting us any more. I fear the clashes will continue. Young people are trying to be heard in anyway they can. Violence sparks more violence.”
As more than 6,000 people gathered for a peaceful march for justice in Nanterre on Thursday, crowds chanted “No justice, no peace!” and “Everyone hates the police!” Nahel’s mother, Mounia, looked down at the crowd from an open-topped truck, trying to fight back tears. At the end of the march, near the police headquarters, officers fired teargas and clashed with some protesters on the edge of the crowd. By late afternoon, several cars in Nanterre had been torched.
“We’re marching peacefully against police racism,” said Radia, a student in her 20s, who had travelled from Versailles. “We’re constantly seeing Black and Arab people targeted by police. This is one death too many.”
After 14 deaths at police traffic stops in the past 18 months – most of Black and Arab men – the case of Nahel had particular resonance because it was filmed. Police initially reported that one officer had shot at the teenager because he was driving at him. But the video footage instead showed two police officers standing by a stationary car, with one pointing a weapon at the driver. A voice is heard saying: “You are going to get a bullet in the head.”
The officer then appears to fire at point-blank range as the car abruptly drives off. “They lied,” said a 57-year-old mother from Nahel’s estate.
The officer involved has been put under formal investigation for voluntary homicide. Many on the estate said that without the video footage, the case would not have been taken seriously.
Assa Traoré, a well-known activist against police violence whose brother died after being arrested in 2016, told the crowd: “The whole world must see that when we walk for Nahel, we walk for all those who were not filmed.”
Hamid, whose brother Lahoucine was shot dead by police fire during an arrest in northern France in 2013, when officers said they were acting in legitimate self-defence and were not prosecuted, said: “The police is deeply racist to its core. The problem is that officers are ready to kill people from estates. There are too many of these cases. I’ve been to marches everywhere in France. Nothing has changed.”
Forty-thousand police were deployed across France on Thursday evening and night-time public transport was stopped early in the greater Paris area for fear of buses and trams being set alight.
Politicians feared echoes of 2005, when the death of two young boys hiding from police in an electricity substation in Clichy-sous-Bois outside Paris triggered weeks of unrest, with France declaring a state of national emergency as more than 9,000 vehicles and dozens of public buildings and businesses were set on fire.
In the early morning on the Pablo Picasso housing estate in Nanterre, where Nahel grew up, burned-out cars lined the main streets and shards of glass were spread across pavements from smashed bus stops, which children on scooters tried to dodge. After hours of clashes between young people and police until after 3am, fresh graffiti on buildings read: “Justice for Nahel. Fuck the state, fuck the police.”
Cherin, 36, who lives in a tower block not far from Nahel’s grandmother, said she had watched from her window as the sky was lit up by fireworks thrown at police. “It was like some kind of Bastille Day fireworks display gone wrong – chaotic, angry and frightening,” she said. “The noise of bangs and explosions was deafening. The teargas rose to our windows and stung our eyes. We were really afraid that a fire would break out below the building and we’d be trapped, unable to escape. It’s us, the people who live here, who are suffering from this. We’re really afraid.”
Kendra, 40, was looking at the ash-white burned-out car of her father, a retired public transport worker from Cameroon. “For hours last night, there were young people everywhere, in groups on lots of different roads,” she said. “The police and even the fire officers were pushed back because they were being attacked. It was war. I really think young people here consider themselves at war. They see it as war against the system. It is not just against the police, it goes further than that, otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing it all across France. It’s not just the police under attack but town halls and buildings being targeted. The death of this teenager has set something off. There’s a lot of anger but it goes deeper, there’s a political dimension, a sense of the system not working. Young people feel discriminated against and ignored.”
She added: “Young people are angry but there has to be another way of expressing that. As residents of this estate, we’re powerless as our cars are burned. We’re the ones who are being affected.”
Sarah, 30, who lives on the estate, said: “The mood here can be compared to the issues of police shootings and racism in US. People are saying it is not right for the police to kill a young person of colour at close range for a traffic offence. Young people are fed up with racism in general. I have four sons, I’m worried for all of them. But I’m afraid that this reaction, where young people are clashing with police at night on the estates, will just make things worse. Far-right politicians will say: ‘Oh look, it’s them again,’ and they will use it against people who live on estates. We really hope things will calm down. We really hope we can sleep tonight.”
