Arrest of Kéziah Nuissier in Fort-de-France: what the footage shows

The arrest of Kéziah Nuissier on 16 July 2020, outside the police station in Fort-de-France, Martinique, gave rise to two separate proceedings. In the first, he is prosecuted for “rebellion” and “wilful violence against a person holding public authority”. In the second, opened on his complaint, he accuses members of the security forces of acts of torture and barbarity. Index analysed the many videos of the arrest filmed that day by surveillance cameras and by witnesses. Examining them in detail makes it possible to retrace how the arrest unfolded.

That day, protesters gathered outside the police station. Earlier that morning, several activists campaigning against chlordecone poisoning had been arrested. This pesticide, an endocrine disruptor linked to prostate cancer, was used in the banana plantations of the French Antilles until 1993. Even today, more than eight in ten adults in Martinique have detectable levels of chlordecone in their blood.

In the late afternoon, tension rose between the protesters and the gendarmes. One of them seized a bèlè drum belonging to Kéziah Nuissier. These instruments “are considered sacred in Martinique”, he told StreetPress, saying he had tried to take the drum back from the gendarme. In the videos, Kéziah Nuissier crosses the gendarmes’ line and pushes the one holding the drum, who falls to the ground.

Within the next ten seconds, at least six gendarmes strike him at least 35 times with batons. The last blow is struck apart from the others, while he is already being dragged along the ground. Pinned on his back and handcuffed, he is held down by an officer sitting on his chest; another puts his knee on his groin, then steps on his knee. The gendarmes then take him behind a van, out of the protesters’ sight.

What happens there was filmed by a local resident. In this footage, several sudden movements are directed at Kéziah Nuissier, most likely blows, including at least one kick. A pool of blood appears by his head while he is held on the ground and an officer insults him.

The gendarme he had pushed then joins his colleagues and grabs his face. According to Kéziah Nuissier, this gendarme pushed a finger into his eye, an account consistent with the photographs taken during his medical examination.

In their complaints, two gendarmes and a police officer describe several violent punches that Kéziah Nuissier allegedly threw at one of them. In the footage of the scuffle that follows the gendarme’s fall, only one blow is visible: a kick by Kéziah Nuissier in his direction, while baton blows are already raining down on him.

For the forehead wound he attributes to Kéziah Nuissier, the gendarme was signed off with two days of total incapacity for work (ITT). Kéziah Nuissier, for his part, has numerous injuries, including a head wound and an eye injury that required surgery; he was given 21 days of ITT.

By decision of the Cour de cassation, France’s highest court, the case was transferred out of Martinique. Kéziah Nuissier appears before the Paris criminal court on 9 and 10 November 2026 for “rebellion” and “wilful violence against a person holding public authority”. He faces up to three years in prison. His own complaint against the security forces, according to his lawyers, has not led to a single investigative step.