Nanterre: a thousand people march for Nahel and against police impunity

The march came two weeks after the Versailles Court of Appeal decided, on 5 March, to reclassify the charges against the police officer who fired the fatal shot at Nahel Merzouk as “violence resulting in death without intent to kill”. This reclassification means the officer will stand trial before the Hauts-de-Seine departmental criminal court (cour criminelle départementale) – a court of professional judges with no jury – instead of the assize court for murder, as the investigating judges had initially ordered.

Beyond Nahel’s case, the march took on a collective dimension. Many families of victims of police violence, who had come from several cities across France, marched together to denounce what they describe as systemic impunity. Speakers took the floor one after another, among them Assa Traoré and Samia El Khalfaoui.

The prosecutor general’s office has, for its part, appealed the Court of Appeal’s reclassification to the Court of Cassation.

In 2024, the NGO Index published with Blast an in-depth investigation into the killing of Nahel Merzouk.