The protests in the United States against racism and police violence have inspired similar demonstrations across the Atlantic, from Amsterdam to London to Paris and Marseille, reports NPR.
More than 20,000 people came out in the French capital Tuesday, despite a ban on gatherings due to the coronavirus.
They shook their fists and yelled "pas de justice, pas de paix!" — "no justice, no peace!" — in front of Paris' main courthouse. But the name the crowd chanted wasn't George Floyd. It was Adama Traoré.
In July 2016, Traoré, a French black man, died in police custody in a suburb outside Paris. Although there is no video, many in France believe that, like Floyd, Traoré was asphyxiated by police. None of the police who interrogated Traoré have been arrested. French protesters said it is time their country wakes up to its own legacy of police brutality and impunity.
"Tonight this fight is no longer just the fight of the Traoré family, its everyone's struggle," yelled Assa Traoré, Adama's older sister. "We are fighting for our brother, in the US George Floyd, and for Adama."
Assa Traoré founded the organization "Justice and Truth for Adama," which is trying to prove that Traoré died of asphyxiation after undue police force. The circumstances of the death of the 24-year-old Frenchman of Malian origin are still under investigation after four years of conflicting medical reports about what happened.
She said it is time "to lift the curtain on the racism in a country where police operate like a mafia and with total impunity."
Tuesday's protest was not the first against police violence and Traoré's death. But until this week, the Traoré case had not widely resonated outside of activist circles, according to French sociologist Mathieu Zagrodzki.
"We are seeing a coalescing of what's happening here and what's happening in America," Zagrodzki, a researcher at Center for Sociological Research on Law and Criminal Justice Institutions, told the newspaper Libération. "The George Floyd case is finding a very strong echo in France."
Nineteen-year-old Jennifer Curier and her friends came out to the rally to support justice for Traoré. Curier said racism is as much of a problem in France as in the US.
"There is no justice in France, either," she said. "And France is very hypocritical about racism. They always denounce what happens in the US — like, 'oh look, they are killing black people, this is not good.' But we have our own case [Traoré] and they can't deal with it. We want them to deal with it!"
Standing beside her friend, 22-year-old Iris Champrobert-Medy said just because there are fewer police murders in France does not mean that things are less terrible. "Just because they don't kill us doesn't mean there's no racism," she said. "It's just more hidden."
The protests over Floyd's death reignited the debate about policing in France's ethnically diverse suburbs, where for decades black and Arab populations say they have been unfairly treated by police.