Nationwide demonstrations and anger in France ignited by the killing of an Algerian teenager. The police union labels protesters as 'vermin' and 'savage hordes.'
As in so many cases of police-perpetrated violence, police had their own version of the shooting, claiming that Merzouk was driving erratically and threatening officers’ lives. However, Harrison Stetlerthat cellphone footage taken by a bystander showed one of the officers aiming his firearm at Merzouk’s driver’s window at point-blank range. The words, “I’m going to put a bullet in your head,” are heard before the car begins to accelerate, and the officer fires the fatal shot.
Stetler, a journalist who writes about French politics and culture, wrote that, “Macron has tended to attribute deaths at the hands of the police to the regrettable errors of individual public servants,” and not the French judicial system. “Since coming to office in 2017, the president has relied on the police forces, cementing their central role in French political life.”
During President Marcon’s tenure, the police and National Guard have been called out repeatedly in the face of mostly peaceful massive protests, including Yellow Vest movement protests opposing inflation, higher gas prices and unpopular pension reforms, as well as the enforcement of pandemic restrictions.
The death of Merzouk and the uprisings that have followed must be understood in the context of France’s history of conquest and its refusal to address the consequences of racism in the present. Andrew Hussey described the ongoing toll of France’s colonialism in his 2014 book,France has a large Muslim population including people from North Africa, the Middle East and the so-called “Black Atlantic,” which includes West Africa stretching from Mali to Senegal.
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