(Breaking) France Has Fallen, Rest in Peace 17 Years Old Nahel

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0.08am Paris (July 1st) / 11.08pm London (June 30th) / 6.08pm Washington DC (June 30th). Bilingual.

Latest 120 Hours Chaos in Entire France (ESPECIALLY IN LAST 3 HOURS), and Even Mbappe (Maybe 2nd Best Football Currently) Begged to Stop. France Deploys 45,000 Police to Quell Further Riots (some news outlet cited now deploys 70,000 police).

Tensions à Paris, place de la Concorde, entre des policiers et des manifestants qui demandent justice pour Nahel. Les obsèques de Nahel, dont la mort causée par le tir d'un policier mardi a suscité 3 nuits de violences dans de nombreuses villes de France, sont prévues samedi, a indiqué vendredi Patrick Jarry, le maire de Nanterre, dont le jeune homme était originaire. Le jeune homme de 17 ans a été tué par un policier dans les Hauts-de-Seine lors d'un contrôle routier mardi dernier. Une réunion entre le ministre de l'Intérieur Gérald Darmanin, celui du Numérique Jean-Noël Barrot, et les plateformes numériques, se tiendra à 18h30, afin "d'alerter" ces dernières "sur leur responsabilité" dans les violences qui secouent la France. La France a jugé "totalement infondée" l'accusation de la porte-parole du Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies aux droits de l'Homme selon laquelle elle connaît des problèmes de racisme et de discrimination raciale au sein de ses forces de l'ordre

Latest 48 Hours Chaos in Entire France (ESPECIALLY IN LAST 4 HOURS), and Even Mbappe (Maybe 2nd Best Football Currently) Begged to Stop.

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Police shot a 17 years old 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.

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. 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. 45,000 police officers had been sent out to try and keep calm across the country overnight - an increase of 5,000 on Thursday. Officials are also at pains to get parents to play their part, by telling their children to stay off the streets. Protesters as young as 13 were arrested overnight on Thursday, according to the interior minister.

With clashes between the population and law enforcement bodies, political jousting and protests from sports and cultural figures, "all the ingredients are there for a pressure cooker to explode," writes Le Soir. In an article published on Wednesday, June 28, the Belgian newspaper notes that, from President Emmanuel Macron to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin to Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, "the French government has pulled out all its water hoses" to "put out the fire as quickly as possible before it spreads – or at least try to."

The newspaper's Paris correspondent points out that "the interior minister, usually quick to defend his men, clearly disassociated himself from them" by openly criticizing the police officers involved. "The word 'bavure' [used to minimize an event of police violence] was not uttered, but, to the dismay of several professional unions, the messages were unambiguous," it noted. The New York Times also writes that Darmanin "has been unusually critical."

Like the French government, the foreign press fears that the urban violence will get worse. In its coverage, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung refers to "scenes of civil war," and expresses alarm that "certain neighborhoods will be totally left to their own devices when the violence explodes." "Among politicians, the fear of no longer being able to control the widespread blaze prevails," adds the German daily.

El Mundo's Paris correspondent describes the whole country as already "out of control." She explains this with a harsh assessment of the state of the country's suburbs: "In these marginal and often abandoned places, where discontent breeds, the integration model has failed. Most of the inhabitants are French of foreign origin (...) born in a France that treats them as second-class citizens. (...) They distrust the police, who distrust them."

Fellow Spanish paper El Pais echoes this analysis, adding that in France "the authorities are living with the permanent fear of a repeat of the 2005 riots," when the deaths of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré in an electricity transformer, after a confrontation with the police, provoked unrest serious enough for the government to declare a state of emergency. For Spain's leading newspaper, these events "highlighted the discrimination suffered by young people in the suburbs."

The BBC's Paris correspondent also recalls the events of 2005. In her view, "the Nanterre shooting is set to be one of those symbolic moments that define the troubled relations between police and disaffected populations in the suburban cités, or estates."

The journalist questions the rules governing the use of firearms by police during roadside checks, raising the prospect of a "revision" of the law: "No one disputes that refusing to stop at a traffic control is a serious offense, and that it happens too frequently. But on 13 occasions last year occupants of cars in such situations were shot dead by French police. That strongly suggests something is wrong."

An editorial in La Tribune de Genève, meanwhile, calls for a way out of a "deadlocked debate" between "two caricatural and irreconcilable camps (...)On one side a perfect police force that never makes a mistake [and] on the other, outraged victims who are nothing but angels." "By all appearances, the policeman did not have to shoot," the author writes, adding, with regard to the young driver killed, that "if he had obeyed the police, he would be alive." "In French political debates, these two truths are never confronted; they clash pointlessly," laments the Swiss newspaper. "Poor debate, sad debate, which only fuels violence, because each only wants to see the other's."

Süddeutsche Zeitung takes a sharper stance in a gloomy article, calling the 13 deaths in France in 2022 from traffic stop incidents "a disgrace for the country." The German newspaper refers to "a widespread problem of police violence in France." "The Council of Europe recently confirmed this after demonstrations against the pension reform," Süddeutsche Zeitung points out. And it evokes the scenes of repression against protests over the Sainte-Soline water reservoir at the end of March: "You can see the police giving the impression of going to war (...) It's a miracle that no one died."

The article continues, "It's a bad tradition: In France, the police don't protect citizens first and foremost, they protect the state. This fundamental principle permeates all units, from specialized intervention forces to road checks. The desire to de-escalate is foreign to many of them. As long as this does not change, such incidents will continue to occur."

Again, This is a developing story. It will be updated.

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