French riots: How an early morning drive led to a death that would tear France apart

A demonstrator runs on the third night of protests sparked by the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old driver in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, France. Photo / AP

“He’s a madman. He shot me,” Nahel Merzouk gasped as he sat crumpled in the driver’s seat of the crashed Mercedes, with a police bullet in his chest.

The 17-year-old was dying, surrounded by peak traffic at 8.19am on a Tuesday. Hours earlier he had kissed his mother Mounia and told her “I love you, Mum” before she went to work.

One of his passengers, Fouad, 17, panicked and fled into the hard-bitten streets of the Parisian suburb of Nanterre.

But Adam, 14, was in the back seat and heard his friend’s last whispered words.

Less than 25 minutes earlier, a series of events began that would lead to Nahel’s death and six days of rioting that would shake France and force it to confront its relationship with race.

The killing of Merzouk, who was of Algerian-Moroccan descent, sparked unrest on a scale not seen since 2005, when a state of emergency was introduced as France grappled with the fallout from the deaths of two teenagers who were electrocuted at a power sub-station while fleeing police in another Paris suburb.

According to French prosecutors, two motorcycle officers spotted Merzouk’s bright yellow Mercedes, fitted with a Polish number plate, speeding in the bus lane of Nanterre’s Boulevard Jacques-Germain-Soufflot.

President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday scrapped an official trip to Germany after a fourth straight night of rioting and looting across France in defiance of a massive police deployment. Photo / AP

They put on their sirens and ordered Merzouk, who was driving without a licence, to pull over. But when he ran a red light in an attempt to lose the officers, a chase began.

The Mercedes raced over a pedestrian crossing, missing a pedestrian and cyclist, before getting stuck in a traffic jam on the Boulevard de la Defense.

The officers dismounted, moved to the left of the vehicle and drew their guns. Aiming the pistols at Merzouk, they ordered him to turn off the ignition.

When the car lurched forward, one officer, identified as Florian M, 38, shot Merzouk once, hitting him in the chest. The same officer administered first aid, but Merzouk was pronounced shortly after, at 9.15 am.

But Adam, the back-seat passenger, tells a markedly different story. His version of events is backed by Fouad, 17, the passenger who had initially fled the scene.

According to Adam, the officers reached into the car and struck Merzouk’s head repeatedly with the butts of their guns.

One officer warned the teenager he would “put a bullet” in his head if he didn’t turn off the engine, Adam has alleged.

A protest is a tribute to Nahel Merzouk, a teenager killed by a policeman after he refused to stop for a traffic check in the city of Nanterre. Photo / Getty Images

As he tried to protect himself from the blows, Nahel’s foot came off the automatic car’s brake pedal.

Adam claims that when the car moved forward, he heard an officer say “Shoot him”. Merzouk was shot at point-blank range.

Fouad’s lawyer said the teen’s family would be filing a complaint with the public prosecutor’s office against the officer who killed Merzouk for “wilful violence”.

Accusations of police brutality are nothing new or surprising in the tough suburbs of the capital.

Neither were reports that Merzouk, who was raised by his mother and never knew his father, had previous brushes with the law.

A takeaway delivery driver, who had enrolled at college to train to be an electrician, he had been the subject of five police checks since 2021 for refusing to comply with an order to stop.

Just over a week before his death, he was placed in detention for refusing to comply and was due before a juvenile court in September.

Most of the trouble he got into involved cars: driving without a licence or insurance and using false number plates.

But Merzouk had never been convicted, said family lawyer Jennifer Cambla, and had no criminal record.

“I think in this kind of suburb it’s pretty rare that a young person hasn’t been stopped by police or hasn’t been in custody,” Cambla said of the boy well-loved in Nanterre and who played rugby.

“For me, Nahel was the typical example of the neighbourhood kid, out of school, sometimes borderline but not a highwayman, and who had the will to get out of it,” said Jeff Puech, the president of Ovale Citizen, a community rugby association.

Seven days after Merzouk’s death, Emmanuel Macron tried to regain the initiative by suggesting fines for parents who fail to prevent minors from looting and vandalism after it emerged 1200 arrests during the riots were of people under the age of 18.

A week after Merzouk’s death there have been a total of 3354 arrests, according to the latest figures. Officer Florian M has also been arrested and faces charges of voluntary homicide.

But no arrests would have been made without that fatal first encounter between Merzouk, a minor, and police, on the streets of Nanterre on the morning of Tuesday, June 27.