Shooting of a teenager: why it's time for French politicians to stop defending police violence
The killing of 17-year-old Nahel by an armed police officer in the Paris suburb of Nanterre has made headlines in France and across the world. It has provoked angry reactions in the streets and from a number of politicians. But as Ellen Salvi writes in this op-ed article, the youngster's death has also been the subject of some shameful comments, of falsehoods, efforts at justification and attempts to play it down. She argues that for the last 20 years successive governments and a rampant far right have denied a stark reality: that of a society that is sinking as it forgets its fundamental principles and the values that stem from them.
TheThe same anger and the same disgraceful reaction. The death of Nahel, aged 17, who was shot and killed at point-blank range by a police officer on Tuesday at a roadblock in Nanterre in the western suburbs of Paris, should have brought everyone together in agreement. No “yes, buts”, no justifications, and certainly no attempts to play it down. In a political and media world that is even slightly in possession of its faculties, these types of public expressions ought to be seen for what they are: the garbage of human thought.
