What the death of Nahel Merzouk reveals about France
On June 27th, 2023, 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk was killed by French policemen during a traffic stop, where the boy was allegedly told to stop the engine of the car he was driving before being shot and subsequently crashing.
Police originally claimed Merzouk was attempting to run them over with his vehicle in an effort to justify their actions in self-defense. Now-deleted video posted on X (referred to as Twitter) shows the policemen positioned at the side of the vehicle yelling at the driver before promptly firing inside.
Passengers with Nahel at the time of the incident fled the scene after his death, stating the police brutalized him with the butt of their weapons and escalated the situation beyond that of a regular traffic stop — ensuring that if he were to move, he would be shot. With another hit of the weapon, Nahel lifted his foot off the brake pedal and was met with his death. Merzouk, of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was the only child of a single mother who worked in the suburb of Nanterre, west of Paris.
As news of his death broke, Nanterre and other regions of France erupted in anti-police protests, which quickly devolved into riots and looting. Police responded with riot gear, tear gas, and other means of determent — though attempts to curb rioting have fallen majorly short. France’s unfolding situation is not isolated to Nahel’s, though, and will not end as quickly as it came. The country, rather, has an ugly face to confront: that of systemic racism and dangerous, far-right xenophobia.
The French Far-Right
In January of 2015, offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine were attacked by self-proclaimed ISIL members, killing twelve in coordination with other Islamist attacks that froze the nation for three days. The gunmen had targeted specific journalists of the magazine because of their content — Charlie Hebdo was widely known as a satirical magazine commentating on religion, politics, and more. Cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammed were previously published in a manner highly offensive to Muslims, as depictions of the prophet are prohibited.
November of that same year saw an additional series of attacks, marking them as the most brutal of Islamist attacks on French soil to date. 89 were killed and hundreds wounded at the Bataclan music hall in Paris, where gunmen opened fire on an arena of approximately 1,500 concertgoers in the worst of the November attacks. The site was pure carnage — rows of bodies plowed over by gunfire, fields of blood, flesh, and hostages being taken by the laughing gunmen.
The attacks not only sent the nation into paralysis; they emboldened the far-right political sphere that had been brewing within France for some time. For the Le Pen family, the attacks provided just the platform necessary to reestablish their influence as the pioneers of a right-wing France — one that was ethnically and culturally free from foreigners.
Dubbed the “devil of the Republic”, Jean-Marie Le Pen was the architect of the National Front, France’s most prominent far-right political party. Outside of being notorious for his collapse in the 2002 presidential election, Le Pen is most widely known for his staunch views on race and immigration, noted to be an anti-Semite and a proponent of torture in the Algerian War. He and the National Front were unilaterally viewed as an abhorrent, fringe opponent to the livelihoods of the French and the values they stood for.
It cannot be understated that upon his sole entry to the second round of the presidential election, nearly all of his opponents and dissenters united in ensuring that a man like Le Pen would never brush the surface of the presidency. The fallout of the 2015 attacks, however, shifted the reality of legitimacy for the National Front.
National views on immigration faltered in light of the attacks, and views on race shifted towards the right due to presumed blame towards the influx of migrants that had entered France in recent years. The French felt a threat to their national identity — that by allowing Muslims and migrants to enter the country as freely as they enjoyed, the safety and quality of life had now become compromised. Marine Le Pen capitalized on these fears in her 2016 rise to power. The daughter of Jean-Marie, Marine ended up removing her father from the party and played a significant role in reforming the identity of the National Front towards a moderate, more “sensible” approach.
The presence of Islam in France brings unnecessary concern for many: for a country founded on egalitarianism and secularity, to what extent should Islam be a central tenet of the population? France had previously instituted bans on hijabs and other traditional wear, citing secularity — but when does this fall under the guise of xenophobia?
In the wake of these attacks, it became easier for the French to shift their blame towards these minorities and reject the presence of Islam in their seemingly secular society. The National Front became a vessel of safety rather than hatred, and Le Pen became the new face of the French right; distanced from her father, and the pioneer of a legitimate solution to a nation losing its spirit. For individuals like Nahel, the solution to these issues came at their expense.
Enforcers of the State
In 2005, teenagers Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré were walking home from a football match when they had fled upon encountering a police van. The boys, along with one other friend, hid in an electricity substation, after police had caught the boys running and proceeded to follow them. Both were fatally electrocuted after fleeing.
In 2017, a 22-year-old man were teargassed and anally raped with a police baton after being assaulted by police in the region of Alnay-sous-Bois. The individual had no criminal record and was still mercilessly brutalized by police.
In 2020, Cédric Chouviat, a 42-year-old delivery driver and father of five, was killed after being held in a chokehold by policemen, exclaiming seven times that he was suffocating before falling unconscious.
The harrowing similarity between each of these incidents? None of the individuals involved were at all guilty. Each and every one were frisked by the police, however.
A 2020 report from Human Rights Watch details the broad power held by French police to racially profile and frisk those as they please, with little to no repercussions for their actions no matter how harmful they may be.
Carrying an identity card is not obligatory for French citizens, and there is no age at which people must acquire an identity card. However, everyone must be able to prove their identity to the satisfaction of a law enforcement officer conducting a check. The police are authorized to detain a person for up to four hours for the purposes of establishing their identity.
Identity checks like these provide the police with unrestricted power to exercise their own prejudice over the populace; because their actions are protected by law, the underlying intent remains concealed. The report later surveys various individuals who voice the same concern: that the discriminatory nature of police searches coupled with their aggression and misuse of force leave them traumatized, unable to seek justice in country where the rule of law protects those who misuse it.
According to the French National Centre for Scientific Research, people of Arab appearance were eight times more likely to be subjected to police searches, and black people six times more likely than their white counterparts. Furthermore, police stops and fine rates in Seine-Saint-Denis, a lower-income, minority-rich area, were far above the national average, further indicating the use of authority to suppress a particular demographic.
French law and jurisprudence give officers a broad justification to conduct so-called security pat-downs that include touching genitalia and buttocks, leading to abusive recourse to this measure and constituting a strongly felt grievance among many… the police appear to use their stop and search powers in disadvantaged neighborhoods as the default engagement with youth, particularly with Black and Arab youth.
As a French-Algerian minority, Nahel’s mistrust in the police has legitimate background — to engage with those who are willing and legally able to stop, frisk, and mishandle you must be met with caution. Yet this context does not justify the use of arms in his traffic stop: the consequence of delinquency is not death.
For many minorities throughout France, the propensity to violate is not only undertaken by police, it is protected by law.
Riots and the Public
The weeks following Nahel’s death were characterized by mayhem in the streets of France, with looting and destruction to be found across Nanterre and other arrondissements. Though it is hard to pin how exactly rioters congregated and coordinated their events, Snapchat and Twitter comprised a majority of content regarding the unfolding events in real-time.
The initial video of Nahel’s death had been posted to Twitter, and a majority of discussions regarding the riots were hosted on the platform. Snapchat, however, provided a more first-hand account into the decimation the country was facing, with new videos being posted every day. The overall discussion and sentiment regarding the protests had little to do with the death of Nahel itself — and as days passed, many believed the riots themselves also had little to do in terms of vindication. An analysis of approximately 10,000 tweets in the two weeks following Nahel’s death (June 28th to July 5th) dives deeper into the interpersonal judgements regarding the unfolding events.
Many individuals on Twitter took up vigilante news reporting, sourcing local content from Snapchat and other individuals with brief commentary regarding events and riots currently unfolding throughout the country.
Others gave their live thoughts on the issues at hand, lamenting the French government for not doing enough to quell tensions, and showing general expressions of frustration with society.
More concerning, however, was the sentiment around Muslims, Algerians, and migrants who many individuals placed blame on for the supposed downfall of society. In the same way the National Front had characterized groups like these as a threat to the French way of life, the riots had allowed many to voice their unadulterated concerns over the integration of minorities into French society, using the events as clear indication of their mistakes.
Filtering for tweets containing mentions of Muslims, Algerians, migrants, and potential dogwhistles (thug, subhuman, criminal) yielded even more telling results regarding public perception of those like Nahel. Though these comprised a mere 6% of total tweets collected, their classification was overwhelmingly negative; providing yet another purview into the overall perception regarding minorities as a result of the riots.
The riots had sparked fear into the hearts of the French once more, but unlike 2015, many more found themselves frustrated with the state of society. Though much of this was targeted at the government, what is hidden underneath the surface is the further justification of far-right ideals that demonize migrants like Nahel. The discussion, then, becomes one not of injustice but of an inability to address what has convoluted a once prosperous society. With no one to justifiably blame, the conversation shifts to those who are most vulnerable.
Conclusion
Nahel’s death is a reflection of the long and understated history France has with racism and xenophobia — so long as it continues to pretend that it doesn’t exist, the French, under the premise of secularity, will continue to shift the blame of their societal failures onto the many Muslims, migrants, and minorities currently living in France. While parties like the National Front progressively gain ground among those frustrated with the direction of the country, those like Nahel will continue to be harassed, frisked, and abused by the police of the state. The law will protect their actions, and the divide between the French and their minorities will grow deeper. There is no reform in a post-colonial society that refuses to confront its own history — and so long as the system allows for violence like this to go unchecked, individuals like Nahel will continue to die in vain. France, then, rears its ugly head once more; as a country painfully unable to confront the reality of its own prejudice. May Nahel rest in peace.
