Grandma shot dead Nahel (17) calls on France to calm down: ‘People who destroy everything must stop’ | Abroad

Grandma Nadia makes her call against the French medium BFMTV. She believes that the rioters here and there in France are ‘using her deceased grandson as a pretext’. That they use Nahel’s death to riot. “They have to stop breaking the shop windows, the schools, the buses. It’s mothers who take the bus.”

Nahel, a boy of Algerian descent, was shot dead by a police officer in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, last Tuesday. That happened after the car in which Nahel was driving was stopped by the police for traffic violations. Police claim the boy then tried to drive away. A friend of Nahel’s says his foot slipped off the brake pedal.

The boy’s death has sparked anger and riots across France. Things first became restless in Nahel’s hometown of Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. Violence soon spread to many other French cities. Many people are angry with the police action and accuse the force of being racist and too aggressive.

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Nadia says she is tired. “It’s over, my daughter has no life left.” She is angry with the officer who shot her grandson, she says. Almost 500,000 euros have already been collected for the law officer in a fundraising campaign. “I feel sick in my heart. But he will be punished like everyone else. I rely on justice,” says the grandmother.

At the same time, she does not want to generalize. She’s mad at that one cop, but not at other cops. “Fortunately they are here.”

In recent evenings and nights there have been riots and clashes between young people and the police in several French cities. Saturday evening and in the night from Saturday to Sunday, 719 people were arrested in the country. One of the low points occurred in L’Hay-les-Roses, just south of Paris. At the house of the mayor of that place there was arson last night. His wife subsequently broke her leg as she fled with her children.

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French President Emmanuel Macron will hold another crisis meeting with several members of the government on Sunday evening due to the ongoing riots, the French newspaper reports. Le monde. The meeting will take place at 7.30 pm in the presence of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and the Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti. Borne and Darmanin also visited L’Hay-les-Roses on Sunday afternoon, where the mayor’s house was set on fire.

Macron was supposed to arrive in Germany on Sunday for a state visit, but the visit has been postponed due to the riots. Macron also held a crisis meeting on Friday about the ongoing unrest. He then returned earlier from Brussels where he was for an EU summit.

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