PARIS — For two hours, in a temper of anguish and anger, lots of of members of the big French Muslim group lined up exterior the Ibn Badis mosque in Nanterre to mourn a young person, one among their very own, fatally shot by a police officer at a site visitors cease.
The taking pictures of Nahel M. befell on Tuesday, adopted by 4 nights of violent rioting in main French cities, and nothing prompt any return to calm because the younger man’s funeral unfolded. His uncle, flanked by buddies and safety brokers employed by the mosque, yelled abuse at anybody making an attempt to movie the proceedings. There have been scuffles.
The police have been nowhere to be seen, after 45,000 officers had been deployed in a single day to confront the tide of rage provoked by a taking pictures at shut vary not removed from the mosque that was caught on video. It would have been a harmful provocation for any uniformed French police officer to look.
For Ahmed Djamai, 58, it was a well-recognized story. The police lied, he mentioned, alluding to preliminary news media stories that the younger man had plowed into officers. They would have gotten away with it, he mentioned, however for the looks of the apparently incriminating video that went viral. “The government always protects the police, a state within the state,” he mentioned.
Tension is so excessive that President Emmanuel Macron introduced that he would postpone a state go to to Germany that was to have begun Sunday. More than 1,300 folks have been arrested throughout a fourth night time of turmoil, violence and looting on Friday.
When the mosque, a contemporary constructing with sad palm and olive timber in entrance of it, was full, about 200 males left exterior fashioned rows on the Avenue Georges Clemenceau, laid their hats and motorcycle helmets and baggage and mats in entrance of them, and prostrated themselves. They rose to their toes and dropped to their knees because the sound of prayer rose from the mosque.
It was a vivid picture of spiritual devotion and a reminder of the highly effective presence of Islam in France, a presence {that a} secular and universalist democracy that prides itself on making no distinction between its residents on the premise of faith or ethnicity has had nice issue accommodating. The toxic legacy of the eight-year Algerian battle of independence that led to 1962 has by no means been overcome.
Engraved on a college behind the lengthy line of Muslim males who waited was the Enlightenment motto adopted by the revolutionary French Republic: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”
There was consensus within the crowd: If Nahel M., a French citizen of Algerian and Moroccan descent, had been white reasonably than an Arab, he wouldn’t have been killed.
There was anger at all-too-frequent slurs. “My name is Usamah,” mentioned one younger man, “so of course my high school teacher would joke that I was bin Laden. She thought it was funny.”
There was resignation. To be Arab or Black, even with a French passport, was typically to be made to really feel second-class.
“When an Arab dies at the hands of the police without a video, that’s the end of the story,” mentioned Taha Bouhafs, an activist who has been working with Nahel’s household to carry consideration to the taking pictures. He mentioned he’s involved with labor unions and human rights organizations within the hope of organizing a common strike towards racism and police violence later this month.
Fatma Aouadi, a digital marketer of Tunisian descent, aged 26, stood exterior the mosque for hours. Why? “Because Nahel was young,” she mentioned. “Because he was an Arab. Because I live here. Because I work here.”
She mentioned that she had not been in a position to cease herself enthusiastic about one thing related taking place to her, and discovering herself with out household — her mother and father are in Tunisia — and at a loss. Her mom had simply referred to as with warnings to remain house and watch out. “They are afraid,” she mentioned.
All this can be a very outdated story in France: a narrative of failed integration; of the shortcomings of a social mannequin that labored properly for a very long time however has been unable to resolve the issues of misplaced hope and poor colleges within the suburban areas the place many immigrants reside; of the tensions flaring into hatred between younger Muslims and the police; of presidency guarantees to revive social cohesion which are by no means fulfilled.
The Algerian Foreign Ministry issued a press release saying it had realized “with shock and consternation of the brutal and tragic death of the young Nahel and the particularly troubling and worrying circumstances in which this happened.”
Recent French authorities statements, after an preliminary expression of concern on the taking pictures, have centered on the following rioting, which Mr. Macron described on Friday as having “no legitimacy whatsoever.” More than 300 cops have been injured, a handful of them critically.
The mutual incomprehension and tensions between the French state, and the numerous residents who’re satisfied the protests have a legitimacy based in a sample of police violence towards minorities, was palpable in Nanterre.
“Nahel helped me carry my shopping upstairs, and I would give him some change,” mentioned Thérèse Lorto, a nurse. “He delivered pizzas. He did some stupid adolescent stuff. But the police, they are full of hatred. It is far too easy to kill and get away with it.”
After the service, males carried a white coffin out of the mosque and positioned it on a automobile. An extended procession fashioned behind it of automobiles, motorbikes and other people strolling. A younger man carrying a “Justice for Nahel” shirt rode a motorcycle on one wheel as the gang moved towards the Mont Valérien cemetery, which solely the lads have been allowed to enter.
Women sat exterior. “It’s terrible,” mentioned one. “Only God should give and take away lives.”
Juliette Guéron-Gabrielle contributed reporting.
Source: www.nytimes.com