Who Was Nahel M? The Boy Whose Killing Has Brought France To The Edge

17-year-old Nahel M did not know that not obeying a police call to stop during a traffic check would cost him his life and France would burn with rage.

Woman with "Justice for Nahel" placard during protest march in France.

Source : Getty Images

He was brought up by a single mother, worked as a takeaway delivery driver, played rugby league and was enrolled in a college to train to be an electrician. On Tuesday, June 27, he gave his mother a big kiss before she went to work, with the words "I love you, Mum", reported BBC. He was unaware of the future, so was his mother and so was France. Nahel was fatally shot in the chest, point-blank, at the wheel of a Mercedes car for driving off during a police traffic check shortly after nine in the morning on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, the report added. He was 17.

"What am I going to do now?" asked his mother. "I devoted everything to him. I've only got one, I haven't got 10 [children]. He was my life, my best friend," she said as the news filled the country with rage and anger, BBC stated. 

As per the report, his grandmother spoke of him as a "kind, good boy". 

A Rugby Player With 'Exemplary Attitude'

Nahel had spent the past three years playing for the Pirates of Nanterre rugby club. He had been part of an integration programme for teenagers struggling in school, run by an association called Ovale Citoyen, the report further mentioned. The programme was aimed at getting people from deprived areas into apprenticeships and Nahel was learning to be an electrician at a college in Suresnes 

Ovale Citoyen president Jeff Puech said, "He was someone who had the will to fit in socially and professionally, not some kid who dealt in drugs or got fun out of juvenile crime."  

As per BBC, he praised the teenager's "exemplary attitude". He had got to know Nahel when he lived with his mother in the Vieux-Pont suburb of Nanterre before they moved to the Pablo Picasso estate. 

Nahel And Police Checks 

As per a BBC report, Nahel had been the subject of as many as five police checks since 2021 - what is known as a refus d'obtempérer - refusing to comply with an order to stop. Though there was no criminal record against him, it was a decision of not stopping on a police call that cost him his life. 

Nahel was of Algerian descent, and people said he was well-loved in Nanterre where he lived with his mother Mounia and had apparently never known his father, BBC mentioned in the report. His record of attendance at college was poor.  

When he was stopped by police, he was in a car with Polish number plates and two passengers. At 17, he was too young to have a driving licence. The report further said that as recently as last weekend, he had reportedly been placed in detention for refusing to comply and was due to appear before a juvenile court in September. Much of the trouble he was in recently involved cars. 

The Outrage Over Death 

Shortly after Nahel’s death, an ambulance man launched a tirade against a police officer, explaining later that he knew the boy as if he was his little brother. BBC cited him as saying that he had seen the kid grow up as a kind, helpful child. "He never lifted raised a hand to anyone and he was never violent," he told reporters. 

His mother believes the police officer who shot him "saw an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life".  According to BBC, she told France 5 TV she blamed only the one person who fired the shot, not the police: "I have friends who are officers - they're with me wholeheartedly."  

"May Allah grant him mercy," read a banner unfurled over the Paris ring road outside Parc des Princes stadium. "Police violence happens every day, especially if you're Arab or black," said one young man in another French city calling for justice for Nahel. 

 However, the family's lawyer, Yassine Bouzrou, said this was not about racism, but about justice. "We have a law and judicial system that protects police officers and it creates a culture of impunity in France," he told the BBC. 

The riots had sent shockwaves across the country. Teenagers are among the protesters who have rocked France as citizens torn apart the country.  

"It could have been me, it could have been my little brother," a Clichy teenager called Mohammed told the French website Mediapart, mentioned a BBC report. 

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