A year after Nahel was shot dead by French police officer: how local community views the elections
On June 27th 2023 17-year-old Nahel was shot dead by a police officer on the streets of Nanterre in the western suburb of Paris, sparking days of protests and unrest in many areas. A year later Mediapart has returned to Nanterre's Pablo-Picasso housing estate where Nahel and his family lived. For many in this traditionally left-voting area the snap election just called by President Emmanuel Macron seems a distant issue compared with the problems of everyday life. Yet it is the residents of this estate whom Sabrina Sebaihi, the candidate for leftwing alliance the New Popular Front, is trying to convince to get out and vote over two rounds on June 30th and July 7th. Mathilde Goanec reports.
ItIt is a full house at the La Traverse social centre, and the atmosphere is electric. Sabrina Sebaihi is officially launching her election campaign for the leftwing alliance, the New Front Populaire, and all the key figures of the Left from the western Paris suburb of Nanterre are here on June 18th to support the re-election of the outgoing green Member of Parliament. In his opening remarks at this evening event the town's communist mayor Raphaël Adam sees the snap election as a “unique” opportunity to show President Emmanuel Macron that he has failed in his gamble of dissolving the National Assembly. “So let's get to work!” he declares. The local CGT representative then takes to the microphone to celebrate some “great and wonderful news”: her trade union has just officially called on people to vote for the New Front Populaire and says it will put “all its effort” behind getting it elected.
