Policeman who killed French teen says sorry to the family, as protests rage

The policeman who killed a French teenager in a Paris suburb on Tuesday, sparking violent protests across the country, has apologised to the family while in custody, his lawyer said.

“The first words he pronounced were to say sorry and the last words he said were to say sorry to the family,” Laurent-Franck Lienard told BFMTV late Thursday.

“He is devastated, he doesn’t get up in the morning to kill people,” Lienard said. “He didn’t want to kill him.”

France has been hit by protests after 17-year-old Nahel was shot point-blank in Nanterre during a traffic stop captured on video that has unleashed rage and reignited debate about police tactics.

Lienard said the policeman was “extremely shocked by the violence of this video”.

The officer has been charged with voluntary homicide and remanded in custody. Lienard said he would on Friday appeal his client being placed in custody.

French police braced for a third night of violent demonstrations as authorities scrambled to contain an escalating crisis. According to an internal security note, the coming nights are expected “to be the theatre of urban violence” with “actions targeted at the forces of order and the symbols of the state”, a police source said.

One Paris suburb, Clamart, has already declared an overnight curfew, between 9pm and 6am from Thursday until next Monday.

UN nations slam France over racism, police violence

“I don’t blame the police, I blame one person: the one who took the life of my son,” Nahel’s mother, Mounia, told the France 5 channel in her first media interview since the shooting.

She said the 38-year-old officer responsible “saw an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life”.

Long-standing grievances about policing and racial profiling in France’s low-income and multiethnic suburbs are seen as fuelling the rioting.

A memorial march for Nahel, led by his mother, ended with riot police firing tear gas as several cars were set alight in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre where he lived and was killed.

Some 40,000 police have been mobilised to try to keep the peace on Thursday, more than four times Wednesday’s numbers.

Cars, bins, schools and government offices were torched on Wednesday night around Paris and in other cities, while some 150 people were arrested nationwide.

As part of measures to restore calm, Paris bus and tram services were halted after 9pm on Thursday, the region’s president said.

President Emmanuel Macron has called for calm and said the protest violence was “unjustifiable”. The riots are a fresh challenge for Macron who had been looking to move past some of the biggest demonstrations in a generation sparked by a controversial rise in the retirement age.

Macron secures pension victory, but gloom deepens in France

Nahel was killed as he pulled away from police who tried to stop him for a traffic infraction.

A video, authenticated by Agence France-Presse, 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.

Authorities in Lille stepped up measures on Thursday aimed at preventing fresh violence, including a ban on gatherings and deploying drones.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, speaking in a town north of Paris where the mayor’s office had been set on fire, said “obviously all escalation has to be avoided”.

The government is desperate to avoid a repeat of 2005 urban riots, sparked by the death of two boys of African origin in a police chase, during which 6,000 people were arrested.

“There are all the ingredients for another explosion potentially,” one government adviser said on condition of anonymity on Wednesday.

Four police officers charged over black man’s beating in France

The head of the right-wing Republicans, Eric Ciotti, called for a state of emergency, which allows local authorities to create no-go areas, but a government source told AFP this option was not currently on the table.

Concern about the police using their weapons to stop drivers who refused to stop for traffic checks has been growing.

Last year, 13 people were killed after refusing to stop for police traffic checks, with a law change in 2017 that gave officers greater powers to use their weapons now under scrutiny.

“What I see on this video is the execution by police of a 17-year-old kid, in France, in 2023, in broad daylight,” said Greens party leader Marine Tondelier.