Thread by @richimedhurst

🧵THREAD: I've been observing the French press and public opinion for the past days.

Explainer on the situation in France:

Police shot a 17yo driver, known as Nahel M (or Naël)

Initially, officers claimed the driver rammed them.

A video filmed by a bystander showed this to be untrue: two police officers aim their guns at Nael's head, then shoot him at point blank range, after starting his engine.

The boy's crime: driving without a license.

Lies were spread on TV and social media about him having a criminal record. This is completely false, Nahel's record is completely clean.

President Macron called the killing "inexcusable". Police received unusually harsh criticism from a good chunk of politicians (but not all).

French actor Omar Sy, and footballer Mbappé commented, conveying their sympathies.

The police officer who shot Nahel has been detained and charged with voluntary manslaughter.

The lawyer for Nahel's family also wants to charge him for lying in his initial testimony, and to charge the second officer as an accomplice to the killing.

First angle of the incident, this is the one that most people have seen.

You can hear one officer say "I'm going to put a bullet in your head" (je vais te mettre une balle dans la tête)

Then the second officer says "shoot!"

Second angle of police shooting 17yo Nahel dead during a traffic stop.

In the left side mirror you can see both police officers, with pistols raised and pointed at Nahel's head.

Graffiti on the wall says: "Were it not for the video, Nahel would just be another statistic."

Many French people have commented online and on TV: "how does refusing to comply warrant a death sentence?". "I also drove without a license when I was young, does that mean I should be shot dead?"

The general public view the police as having used excessive force and violence.

A French ambulance worker explodes against the police: "You can see he's just a kid! [Killed] for not having a driver's license? Nanterre will hit the roof!"

The police arrested him afterwards, for allegedly "threatening" them and "inciting hatred".

French authorities enjoy immunity from a 2017 law (Article L435-1) which relaxes rules for use of deadly force.

Going beyond self defence, it gives police the right to shoot anyone who refuses to comply after 2 "loud commands", driver or otherwise, and is worded very ambiguously

Nahel's mother: "I did everything as usual: I went to work, and then an hour later they tell me my son is dead. What do I do? I gave everything, I did everything for my son, just for some son of a bitch to shoot him".

Minster of Interior @GDarmanin, while conveying his sympathies to Nahel's family, said police officers should be afforded a presumption of innocence, and insists that this law was made to protect the lives of policemen and other authorities.

Darmanin defended the law by saying many police have been killed by individuals who refused to comply.

He said, however, not to confuse that with the killing of Nahel; refusal to comply is unacceptable, but so is shooting drivers, no matter their age.

The entire country is disgusted and shocked by the killing. France has a strong tradition of striking and protesting so people have hit the streets not just in Paris, but all over including Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Dijon, Nantes & many more

Riot police in Marseille. People throw fireworks at them, and set cars alight (a French tradition).

Lyon:

A photograph of Nahel M., shot dead by French police during a traffic stop.

Nahel was killed in Nanterre, located in the suburbs of Paris, aka "la banlieu". The Banlieu is viewed as a product of class and racial segregation: it suffers from poverty, and many residents are of Arab and African descent-- particularly from countries that France colonized.

Protests in the Banlieu can get very heated, stemming from a deep mistrust of police.

A man tells police "what's wrong with you, killing a 17yo boy like that?", to which a policeman quietly mutters "go back to Africa"-- just loud enough for the camera:

While pleading for calm and asking for people to let "justice run its course", Macron has also deployed 40,000 police to crush the unrest.

French riot police, the CRS, are known across Europe, even among other police forces, for being extremely violent. A reputation that goes back many decades.

Macron deployed them against the yellow vests and now he chooses to wield them against the Banlieu.

The last time you had giant riots was in 2005, after two boys died by electrocution, while trying to hide from police chasing them. They committed no crime.

Nahel, the boy shot dead by French police, is of Algerian descent.

Until the 1960s, Algeria was not just a French colony, but a "département", a state/province. It was considered part of France, until the French were kicked out of the country.

It wasn't long ago that France butchered 1.5 million Algerians to try and maintain control of Algeria. Now French authorities kill an Algerian boy, it seems little has changed from a century ago.

Father drags his son out of the protest and puts him in the trunk 😂😂

People howling in the video: "His mother caught him, he's screwed now"

Sports car rams into a Lidl (grocery store) repeatedly

Someone brought a chainsaw😂😂 dude

French police beating the crap out of someone

Surveillance tower is knocked down with construction equipment

WATCH my full take on YouTube:



Absolutely Wild Moments of French Protests https://t.co/lHBpbJ100j