Florian M., the policeman who killed a 17-year-old boy, Nahel, on Tuesday of last week at a checkpoint in Nanterre – in the western suburbs of Paris – will remain in pre-trial detention. This is what the Court of Appeals of Versailles decided yesterday.
The hearing took place by video conference. The 38-year-old agent was in La Santé prison in the capital. His lawyer, Laurent-Franck Liénard, expressed to the media his criticism of justice for acting conditioned by street pressure, for fear of new riots like those that caused an inferno of fire and destruction in many French cities.
According to Liénard, his client did not want to kill Nahel, but fired the gun because he felt in danger, only 40 centimeters from a wall. He feared that the boy, at the wheel of a Mercedes, would hit the steering wheel and crush a colleague and himself, who were next to the vehicle. The lawyer stressed that Florian B. is mentally shattered and experiences the situation as “a nightmare”.
Contradictory versions have emerged on some details of the tragic episode, on whether Florian M.’s colleague shouted “disconnect” or “shoot”, and on whether the police had previously threatened the boy to “put a bullet in his head”. Florian B. denies it. The only fact is that Nahel was fatally shot in the chest.
The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, spoke yesterday about what happened during a visit to Pau, in the department of the Atlantic Pyrenees. He congratulated himself that “order” and “calm” had been restored, voted for “concord” and promised that “we will continue working to solve the problem of the neighborhoods”. The head of state was surprised by the level of violence of the young people who participated in the riots and admitted that social networks had something to do with the phenomenon. However, Macron’s reaction is being discreet. He has so far avoided dealing with the issue in a more formal way, for example, through a televised address.
In anticipation of another outbreak of violence, the French police are trying to remove from circulation large quantities of firework mortars that are traded illegally. In just twenty-four hours in the Paris region, nearly 900 kilos of this pyrotechnic material was confiscated, which in theory can only be acquired by professionals in the sector, but in practice it is sold without problems on the black market via internet Gangs engaged in vandalism and looting buy the mortars to fight the police, to confuse them and also to cause fires. Thrown directly at agents, they can seriously injure and even kill them. They are a leisure material that, due to their explosive charge, are transformed into powerful urban guerrilla weapons.
Last night Marseille was on high alert due to fears of incidents following a protest march over the death of a young delivery rider on Saturday night, probably from the impact of a rubber bullet .
