The death of the 17-year-old teenager has sparked waves of violent protests during the statistical tests, and this is just one of the deadly incidents, writes the BBC.
In 2017, France expanded the right of the police to use firearms during checks, and currently, the use of firearms is allowed in five cases. One of them is when a car driver or passenger ignores a police order to stop and poses a danger to the officer or others.
The French human rights ombudsman has opened an investigation into the murder of 17-year-old Nahel, and it is already the sixth such case since the beginning of 2022. The policeman who fired the shot has been charged with murder.
Riots are common in France, particularly in the outer suburbs with higher crime and unemployment rates, and police report increasing violence. In 2016, after a group of youths threw petrol bombs at a patrol car on the outskirts of Paris,
a police officer was so badly burned that a decision was made to put him in an induced coma to allow the injuries to heal.
Police unions protested and demanded a strong response from the government.
Then-Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve pledged to change the law on the use of weapons, and in March 2017, amendments were passed that expanded the number of situations in which police can use firearms.
Nahel, a teenager of Algerian origin, was shot on the 27th of June when he disobeyed the police’s demands to stop the car. Police officers later testified that the deceased repeatedly violated traffic rules and endangered pedestrians. The lawyer of the accused policeman stated on the 29th of June that his client had given in his weapon and added that the policeman acted in accordance with the law.
A study conducted last year shows that since the changes in the law,
the number of cases where police have used firearms during traffic checks has multiplied.
Critics argue that the fatal incidents are a direct result of a changed law that they say is too loosely worded because it allows officers to determine when a risk is created.
Henri Leclerc, head of the French non-governmental organization Human Rights League, stated that the law gives policemen legal protection for the use of firearms. Others go further, with one far-left French politician calling it a law that “gives the right to kill”.
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin dismissed the criticism and said the number of people killed by police had decreased. However, information from the investigative media Basta shows the opposite, and the number of killed persons has increased from 27 in 2017 to 52 in 2021.
Thierry Clair, deputy general secretary of the Unsad-Police union, told the BBC that
whether the weapon was used legally in the case would be determined during the investigation.
He said that the main thing is the appropriateness of the action to the extent of the threat. For example, one of the cases concerns the stopping of a vehicle whose driver and passengers are not cooperating and whose continued participation in traffic poses a risk to bystanders. The latest incident could fall into this category.
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