The honorary demonstration takes place one day before France goes to the polls in the first round of early elections, with racism at the center of the vote.
A year after a French teenager with North African roots was killed by a police officer, his mother led a march in honor of her son that ended at the place where he was shot and killed without provocation.
Several hundred family, friends and supporters gathered in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Saturday to remember Nahel Merzouk, 17, who was shot dead at close range by a police officer in a traffic stop on June 27, 2023 – a murder which provoked shock and days of riots across France.
His mother, Mounia, spoke to the crowd and then began to cry. Friends wore white T-shirts with Merzouk’s photo and residents of his housing complex held a banner reading “Justice for Nahel”.
The march ended at the spot where he was killed and an imam sang and read a prayer. Although there was no visible police presence, organizers recruited guards to ensure the safety of the event.
The procession took place at a politically tense time, when hate speech is damaging the campaign for early parliamentary elections on Sunday. And when an anti-immigration party – which wants to increase police powers to use their weapons and has historical links to racism and anti-Semitism – leads the polls.
Merzouk’s mother asked politicians to stay away from the march to avoid tensions. “I no longer have Nahel. I just want justice for my son,” she told the crowd.
Assa Traore, 39, who has been fighting for justice since her brother, Adama, died in police custody in 2016, said: “This march is a powerful symbol.”
“This means that history cannot write itself without us. We, in working-class neighborhoods, are the direct victims of these elections. We realized from the beginning that the National Rally and the far-right parties were a danger to our country and will weaken it,” said Traore, who has roots in Mali.
‘Racial profiling is our daily lives’
Reporting from Naterre, Al Jazeera’s Berard Smith noted: “Nahel’s death has fueled a narrative that French police use excessive force and get away with it. The office of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights said the shooting was a “moment for the country to seriously address the profound issue of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement.”
On Sunday, French voters go to the polls in the first round of voting for the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, which could lead to the country’s first far-right government since the Nazi occupation in World War II.
Citing “security concerns”, particularly in housing estates and other impoverished areas in French suburbs – or “banlieues” – the far-right National Rally (RN) party wants to give a new specific legal status to the police.
If police officers use weapons during an intervention, it will be “presumably” that they acted in self-defense. Currently, police officers share the same legal status as all French citizens and must prove that they acted in self-defense after firing a firearm.
Meanwhile, the left-wing coalition Nova Frente Popular wants to ban the use of some police weapons and dismantle a notoriously violent police unit.
“People fear a victory for the RN party. People in 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, RN faced new accusations of racism with a senior parliamentarian declaring that a former education minister of Moroccan descent should never have gotten the role because of her origins.
Lawmaker Roger Chudeau declared that the appointment of Najat Vallaud-Belkacem to the education portfolio in 2014 was “not a good thing” for France, saying that her French and Moroccan citizenship meant she had “contradictory loyalties”.
The incidents did little to harm the National Rally’s popularity, however.
Opinion polls suggest that the RN party could dominate the next parliament after the July 7 second round of voting and secure the position of prime minister. In this scenario, Macron would maintain the presidency until 2027, but in a strongly weakened role.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
