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French police violence: notorious cases

A video of police fatally shooting a teenager during a traffic check has put French policing back in the spotlight.

Published: 28 June 2023 17:44 CEST
Updated: 16 July 2023 11:44 CEST

French activist Jean-Baptiste Redde aka Voltuan (R) holds a sign reading 'Support for Assa, justice for Adama' next to other demonstrators during the trial of Assa Traore, the sister of Adama Traore who died in custody after his arrest by gendarmes in 2016 (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)

Relations between the police and immigrant communities came into sharp focus in 2005 when two teenagers, one black, one of Arab origin, died while trying to hide from officers in an electricity sub-station in a Paris suburb.

Their deaths caused weeks of rioting, with youths blaming the police for their demise.

AFP looks back at some of the high-profile cases in which French police were accused of violent abuses:

Beaten up

In November 2020, CCTV footage of white officers beating up and racially insulting an unarmed black music producer in his central Paris studio caused a national outcry, fuelling accusations of institutionalised racism in the police.

Michel Zecler was stopped for not wearing a Covid face mask. The police also claimed he smelled strongly of cannabis but only a tiny amount of the substance was later found in a bag.

Zecler said the officers used a racist epithet while punching him in an attack that President Emmanuel Macron said “shamed” France.

Four officers were charged with assault. The case has yet to go to trial.

‘I’m suffocating’

In January 2020, 42-year-old motorbike delivery rider Cedric Chouviat died after being stopped by police in central Paris, who said he was talking on his mobile phone.

An argument ensued, during which officers pinned Chouviat to the ground with his helmet still on and restrained him in a chokehold.

A video showed him pleading with officers, saying “I’m suffocating” nine times, before suffering a heart attack. Three officers were charged with manslaughter.

The use of the chokehold, blamed for other deaths in police custody in France, was banned in 2021.

Disabled for life

A 22-year-old black man, Theodore Luhaka, was left disabled for life after being sodomised with a police baton during a stop-and search operation in the Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois in 2017.

A video showed him wrestling with the officers then suddenly collapsing in pain. The attack caused riots. Then president Francois Hollande visited Luhaka in hospital.

Three officers are to stand trial in January 2024 on charges of mutilating him.

France’s ‘George Floyd’

Often dubbed the “French George Floyd”, 24-year-old Adama Traore died in police custody on July 19, 2016 after being pinned to the ground, with handcuffs on, following a chase in the Paris suburb of Beaumont-sur-Oise.

One of the officers said Traore bore the combined weight of three officers who tried to restrain him.

His death led to several nights of riots in the Paris region. His sister Assa leads the “Justice for Adama” movement.

Belgian experts concluded Adama’s death was caused by heatstroke, aggravated by the police’s use of physical restraint.

No charges have been brought in the case.

Nahel

The the case that sparked the recent nights of rioting across France was another one that was caught on video, this time mobile phone camera footage.

Police initially said that 17-year-old Nahel had refused to stop, and had driven at officers who fired in self-defence.

Then the video emerged on social media – it showed the yellow Mercedes with Nahel at the wheel was stationery while a police officer stands to one side, pointing his gun through the window. Shouts are heard, including one of the officers yelling ‘you’ll get a bullet in the head’ – the car then begins to move off, the officer fires and the car briefly careers out of control before crashing. Nahel is pronounced dead at the scene after being shot in the chest.

The teenager, who did not have a driving licence, was driving a rented car with Polish registration. He had previously been in trouble for driving without a licence, but had no criminal record.

The officer has been charged with murder and is expected to stand trial in the months to come.

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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.