On Avenida Pablo Picasso in Nanterre, amid the remains of burnt-out cars that are still smoking and where the smell of burning still smells, the figure of Munia rises above the crowd, mounted on a car in which he cries out the battle cry from the entire neighborhood: “Justice for Nahel”.
is the mother of 17-year-old boy killed Tuesday after being shot by a police officer in a check in Nanterre, a neighborhood of Paris. Last night, the epicenter of the riots, this noon thousands of people wrapped up the mother in a white march organized in memory of the minor which, two hours later, ended with riots on another avenue with an iconic name: Nelson Mandela Square.
“He was just a kid. We all loved him. That he was driving without a license? Yes. That he had skipped a control? Also. That does not give the right to kill a boy,” Jakoubi Mohamed cries through tears. He is a neighbor of the neighborhood and assures that he was next to the police checkpoint on Tuesday when an agent shot the young man.
“We have all grown in the neighborhood. we are french tooeven though we are muslims. We are French and we are also against violence. We are against it! “, shouts this man, who comes with his son to the march.
“Nahel is everyone’s son, he is our brother, our grandson. That is why we are all here,” says Nayah, who has come from another nearby neighborhood to Nanterre to support Munia. “There is no right, how people are treated in these neighborhoods. It’s like we’re a sub race“, says this engineer of Algerian origin who came to France 25 years ago, because she was a feminist and “they started killing women for it.” “Of course I’m French and I feel French,” she defends.