Riots in France: How the country has a long history of racist police violence

France is burning. Violence has gripped the European nation for five days. Thousands have been arrested after 40,000 police were deployed overnight on Thursday as there was rioting across France. The anger was triggered after a 17-year-old French driver of Algerian descent was shot dead at point-blank range by a police officer for failing to comply during a traffic stop.

The killing of the boy, named Nahel M, has led to unprecedented anger. The police at first reportedly lied and accused the youth of trying to run over officers. But soon a cell phone video emerged – it showed the French police brandishing rifles and executing the teen in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre. No officer was standing in front of the yellow Mercedes that Nahel was driving.

French president Emmanuel Macron called the killing “inexplicable and inexcusable on Wednesday. The local prosecutor also said that there was no justification for the shooting, according to a report by CNN.

Also read: French Fury: How shooting of 17-year-old has led to protests and violence

Violence and French police

The police officer who fired the bullet at Nahel has been detained and charged with voluntary homicide. However, this is not an isolated incident. French policing has been marred with cases of systemic racist violence, which is often brushed under the carpet.

The statistics are shocking. In 2022 alone, there were 138 documented incidences of French police firing shots at moving cars, while 13 people died in shootings that took place during traffic stops, reports Deutsche Welle (DW). There were three such incidents in 2021 and two in 2020. Most victims since 2017 have been Black or of Arab origin.

A French law passed in 2017 allows police to shoot when the driver or occupants of a vehicle ignore an order to stop and are deemed to pose a risk to the officer’s life or physical safety, or other people’s. The cops can fire without having to justify their decision on grounds of self-defence. The Guardian quotes researcher Sebastian Roché as saying that the number of fatal shootings against moving vehicles has increased fivefold.

According to a 2017 survey on “police-population relations” published by Defender of Rights, an independent administrative authority of the French government, the police practice of identity checks mainly targets young men from visible minorities, giving credence to the idea of checks “based on racial”. Young men perceived as Black or Arab are 20 times more likely to be checked than the rest of the population.

Now the United Nations has asked Paris to seriously address the problem of racism and racial discrimination within its police forces. “Now is the time for the country to seriously address the deep-seated issues of racism and racial discrimination among law enforcement,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Friday.

While the statement comes in the wake of Nahel’s killing, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) pointed to the “discriminatory arrests” carried out by the police in France in December last year. It highlighted the “frequent use of identity checks, discriminatory arrests, as well as the application of criminal fixed fines imposed by the police or law enforcement agencies disproportionately targeting certain minorities, in particular people of African descent, of Arab origin, Roma, travellers and non-French nationals”.

Also read: How violent protests in France are driving away tourists

French police tend to be violent. They have in the past frequently used teargas grenades and rubber projectiles, which have maimed demonstrators. During the Yellow Vests movement in 2018 and 2019 an estimated 2,500 protesters were injured, many of whom lost eyes or limbs, reports The Guardian.

According to Roché, French police are more heavily armed than most of their European colleagues and deploy weapons that are often banned or used only very rarely elsewhere more extensively.

France’s history of racism

French police have a history of racism and violence against people who are “non-White”. They have historically targeted Arab and Black people. In 1961, police killed more than 100 French Arabs who were protesting in Paris in support of Algerian independence, reports Al Jazeera. While several were executed in the streets, some were reportedly drowned in the River Seine.

In 1983, 19-year-old Toumi Djaïdja slipped into a coma for two weeks after he became the victim of police violence. When he woke up, he organised a peaceful protest, the “March for Equality and Against Racism”, the first antiracist demonstration on a national level, which brought together 100,000 people in Paris.

But over the years, police racism continued. In fact, it became more frequent. In 2005, three teenagers aged between 15 and 17 – Bouna Traore, Zyed Benna, and Muhittin Altun – were on their way home from a football match when they were chased by the police when they had done no wrong. They ran into a fenced area, hiding in a power substation, where Traore and Benna died of electrocution and Alun survived with severe burns and life-changing injuries.

In 2009, an Algerian man Ali Ziri was visiting France to buy gifts for his son. The 69-year-old and his friend had a few drinks. They were checked at a police traffic stop when Ziri who was a passenger resisted arrest. Three police officers handcuffed him and restrained him on the way to the station, with his head between his knees. He vomited several times, fell into a coma, and died in hospital a few days later.

In 2016, 24-year-old Adama Traore, whose parents were from Mali, was chased by the police. When he was caught, the officers knelt on his back. Traore said that he could not breathe, according to an arrest report, and then died.

In 2020, a 42-year-old delivery driver Cedric Chouviat died after being arrested in Paris. He pleaded several times that he was suffocating as police held him to the ground. The officers did not budge; Chouviat then lost consciousness and died in hospital 48 hours later.

The list of controversial incidents involving the police is only growing. Sociologist Fabien Jobard from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) told DW after the Black Lives Matter movement spread to France three years ago that there has been a rise in police violence over the past 30 years.

Also, there is a history of military methods in the French police. French social scientist and activist Mathieu Rigouste wrote in The Guardian, “Throughout the colonial period, police agents and officers took their experiences from places such as Algeria and applied them to the policing of working-class neighbourhoods and the quelling of insurrections in mainland France.” He said that “manhunt, capture and strangulation techniques” used by police are “part of this long history”.

The problem of colourblindness

Prominent anti-racism campaigner Rokhaya Diallo told BFMTV that French police are “institutionally racist.” However, little has been done to tackle the issue of police violence against people of colour. A big part of the problem is that France refuses to acknowledge racism.

After Nahel’s death, his ethnicity has been largely ignored in domestic news reports. That is because France claims to be colourblind. The Constitution guarantees “the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion”. But the reality is stark.

When killings like that of Nahel take place in the United States or the United Kingdom, racism as a cause is acknowledged in the media and social commentary. However, the issue of race remains a taboo in France.

“In France, liberals and leftists often join forces with right-wing extremists to deny the existence of French racism,” Crystal M Fleming, a professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Stony Brook University writes in Al Jazeera.

Without acknowledging that racism exists, fighting it seems impossible. Did Nahel’s race lead to his killing? It’s high time France asks this question.

With inputs from agencies

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