Will the French police exert a systematic violence against minorities? | policy

According to episode (2025/5/14) of the “Second -degree Citizen” program that can be fully followed up in this link, the pace of the crisis has escalated a sharp escape in recent years, with 44 people killed by police bullets during the previous two years of the Algerian youth Nael Al -Marah.

On the morning of June 27, 2023, Nael, 17, left his house in the suburb of Nanter, after he bid farewell to his mother with a kiss and love words.

The mother did not realize that this would be the last moment when she sees her son alive. Just an hour later, the police fired a dead bullet at the young Algerian origin during a routine inspection.

His last words were to his friend: “I will die … he is a fool who shot!”, And later became a slogan for the protesters.

The killing of Nael ignited the reputation of the anger in the French suburbs, and demonstrations spread like wildfire under the slogan “No justice here!”

The streets of Paris and other cities turned into confrontation arenas, with deliberate fires and attacks on police stations, but these protests were only a new episode in a long series of popular anger.

And 7 years ago, Adam Taruri, 24, died in similar circumstances, as the black young man died of African descent, suffocated during his arrest.

His sister Asa Traore devoted her life to the struggle for justice, as it took 7 years to prove the police involvement in the death of her brother, and Ace says: “When you speak, they kill you,” referring to the culture of impunity.

Traore continues her struggle, stressing that her battle “is not only for an Adam, but for all those who fell.”

She drew attention to the blatant similarity between her brother’s case and the case of George Floyd in America, saying: “Even in death, we do not deserve the treatment of humans.”

Anticipation

In the Pablo Picasso neighborhood of Nanterre, one of the hotbeds of protests, the youth live in a permanent awaiting state, as one of them says: “The police caused me two injuries”, while another adds: “They treat me as a criminal just because I am Arab”, while residents accuse the media of inflating the image of “danger” in their neighborhoods, while they overlook the systematic violence they are exposed to.

From within the police institution, Abdullah Conte, a Muslim policeman of African origin, provides a rare testimony and says: “There are amenities who practice systematic violence,” and despite his recognition of a problem, he insists that “the French police as a whole is not racist.”

The roots of the crisis dates back to October 17, 1961, when the French police killed more than 200 Algerians during a peaceful demonstration in Paris, and the official in charge of the massacre then Maurice Babon, and has never been tried for this crime, despite his later condemnation in other cases.

While France raises the slogans of freedom and equality, the reports document thousands of discrimination against Muslims and minorities annually.

The French Council for Muslim Affairs recorded in 2021 alone thousands of incidents that were not reported most of them due to the lack of confidence in the judicial system.

Between the denial of the institution and the testimonies of the victims, the biggest question remains: Is it related to individual errors or a systematic racist system? As the protests continue, the need for a fundamental reform of a system that seems to have lost the confidence of a large part of its citizens.