French policeman charged over shooting of teenager

A French policeman has been charged and remanded in custody ahead of trial over the killing of a teenager at point blank range which sparked nationwide protests, prosecutors said Thursday.

Published: 29 June 2023 17:58 CEST

French policeman charged over shooting of teenager

Police officers clash with protesters during a commemoration march for a teenage driver shot dead by a policeman, in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, on June 29, 2023. (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)

The investigating magistrate has charged the policeman with voluntary homicide and placed him in provisional detention over Tuesday’s incident, the regional prosecutors said in a statement.

Earlier on Thursday a prosecutor said the policeman’s use of his firearm had not been legal under the circumstances, and he would be taken before a magistrate with a view to being charged with homicide.

The teenager, named Nahel, was killed as he pulled away from police who tried to stop him for traffic infractions.

A video, authenticated by AFP, showed two policemen standing by the side of the 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 police officer then appears to fire as the car abruptly drives off.

On Thursday night the police officer’s lawyer told BFM TV that his client had wanted to aim at the teenager’s legs but his gun rose up as the teenager drover away.

“My client risked being run over, he was in danger,” the lawyer said after insisting his client was sorry for the death of the youngster.

Clashes first erupted as the video emerged to contradict police accounts that the teenager was driving at the officer.

French authorities are ready for more violent night protests over the fatal shooting of a teenager by a policeman according
to an internal security note on Thursday, a police source said.

The source referred to an internal document saying the “coming nights” were expected “to be the theatre of urban violence” with “actions targeted at the forces of order and the symbols of the state”, the source said.

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Police intervened as dozens of students gathered on a central Paris campus of the prestigious Sciences Po university on Wednesday evening, management said.

“After discussions with management, most of them agreed to leave the premises,” university officials said in a statement to AFP, saying the protest was adding to “tensions” at the university.

But “a small group of students” refused to leave and “it was decided that the police would evacuate the site,” the statement added.

Sciences Po said it regretted that “numerous attempts” to have the students leave the premises peacefully had led nowhere.

According to the police préfecture, students had set up around 10 tents.

When members of law enforcement arrived, “50 students left on their own, 70 were evacuated calmly from 0.20am” and the police “left at 1.30am, with no incidents to report,” the police said.

The protesters demanded that Sciences Po “cut its ties with universities and companies that are complicit in the genocide in Gaza” and “end the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus,” according to witnesses.

The protest was organised by the Palestine Committee of Sciences Po.

In a statement on Thursday, the group said its activists had been “carried out of the school by more than fifty members of the security forces,” adding that “around a hundred” police officers were “also waiting for them outside”.

Sciences Po management “stubbornly refuses to engage in genuine dialogue,” the group said.

The organisers have called for “a clear condemnation of Israel’s actions by Sciences Po” and a commemorative event “in memory of the innocent people killed by Israel,” among other demands.

Separately, the Student Union of Sciences Po Paris said the decision by university officials to call in the police was “both shocking and deeply worrying” and reflected “an unprecedented authoritarian turn”.

Many top US universities have been rocked by protests in recent weeks, with some students furious over the Israel-Hamas war and ensuing humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza.

France is home to the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s biggest Muslim community.

The war in Gaza began with an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on October 7th that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

In retaliation, Israel launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,305 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.