March for Nahel Merzouk a year after his killing by French police | Protest News

The honorary rally will take place a day before France goes to the polls in the first round of early elections in which racism will take center stage in the vote.

A year after a French teenager of North African descent was killed by a police officer, his mother organized a march to pay tribute to her son. The march ended where he was shot for no reason.

Several hundred family members, friends and supporters gathered on Saturday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre to honor the memory of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, who was shot dead at close range by a police officer at a traffic stop on June 27, 2023 – a murder that caused shock and days of riots throughout France.

His mother, Mounia, addressed the crowd before bursting into tears. Friends wore white T-shirts with Merzouk’s photo, and residents of his neighborhood held a banner reading “Justice for Nahel.”

The march ended at the place where he was killed, and the imam sang and read a prayer. Although there was no visible police presence, organizers recruited security guards to ensure security during the event.

The procession came at a politically charged time, as hate speech mars the campaign for Sunday’s snap general election and as the anti-immigration party – which wants to give police more gun powers and has historical links to racism and anti-Semitism – leads in polls.

Merzouk’s mother asked politicians to stay away from the march to avoid tensions. “I don’t have Nahel anymore. I just want justice for my son,” she told the crowd.

Assa Traore, 39, who has been fighting for justice since the death of her brother Adam in police custody in 2016, said: “This march is a powerful symbol.”

“This means that history cannot write itself without us. We, from the working-class neighborhoods, are the direct victims of these elections. We realized early on that the National Rally and the far-right parties were a threat to our country and would weaken it,” said Traore, who has roots in Mali.

“Racial profiling is our everyday reality”

Reporting from Nanterre, Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith noted: “Nahel’s death has fuelled the narrative that French police used excessive force and got away with it. The Office of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights said the shooting was “a moment when the country should seriously address the deep problem of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement.”

French voters head to the polls on Sunday in the first round of voting for the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, which could produce the country’s first far-right government since the Nazi occupation during World War II.

Citing “security concerns,” especially in housing estates and other poor areas of France’s suburbs — or “banlieues” — the far-right Rallye Nationale (RN) party wants to give the police a new, special legal status.

If police use a weapon during an intervention, it is “presumed” that they acted in self-defense. Currently, police officers have the same legal status as all French citizens and must prove that they acted in self-defense after using a firearm.

Meanwhile, the left-wing New Popular Front coalition wants to ban the use of some police weapons and disband a police unit known for its brutality.

“People are afraid of the RN party winning. People from working-class neighborhoods are afraid every day that our sons, brothers or husbands will be killed. Racism and racial profiling are our daily lives,” Traore said.

“Conflicting Loyalties”

On Friday, the Supervisory Board faced new accusations of racism from a senior parliamentarian who said the former education minister of Moroccan origin should never have taken the job because of her origins.

Lawmaker Roger Chudeau has declared that the appointment of Najat Vallaud-Belkacem as education minister in 2014 “was not a good thing” for France, stating that her French and Moroccan citizenship meant she had “conflicting loyalties”.

However, these incidents did not significantly affect the popularity of the National Assembly.

Opinion polls suggest that the RN party could dominate the next parliament after the second round of voting on July 7 and secure the position of prime minister. In this scenario, Macron would retain the presidency until 2027, but in a significantly weakened role.