Nine charged over French boy’s death in gang war

Gang violence in the southern French city of Nîmes the life of a ten-year-old boy this summer, leaving his family "devastated". Nine people have been charged.

Published: 18 November 2023 12:15 CET

French police patrol the southern city of Nîmes. (Photo by Sylvain THOMAS / AFP)

Nine young men including a minor were charged over the death of French child, a collateral victim of drug trafficking in the southern city of Nimes, a prosecutor said Saturday.

Two days after the death of the 10-year-old identified only as Fayed, an 18-year-old was killed during a drug deal.

The teen is believed to be the initial target on the evening that Fayed died, said Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone.

Eight men aged between 18 and 30 have been remanded in custody while a 17-year-old has been placed under judicial supervision, he said. They deny the killing, according to BFMTV.

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“The young Fayed and his family had nothing to do with drug trafficking and are obviously collateral victims, perhaps a mistake in targeting due to the make of the car they were in,” Bessone said.

The boy was killed late in the evening of August 21 in a gritty Nimes neighbourhood when his uncle’s car came under fire from automatic weapons in a turf war between drug gangs.

A lawyer for his family told BFMTV that “young Fayed leaves behind a younger brother and parents who are absolutely devastated.”

“We want all those implicated in the chain of responsibility to face justice and to be held to account,” he said.

The investigation is also turning to the nearby Mediterranean city of Marseille, with evidence suggesting the drug dealing hotspot in Nimes is backed by the “DZ Mafia”, the main gang operating in Marseille, the prosecutor said.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.