French prosecutors on Tuesday, March 4, said they had demanded a police officer be tried over the 2023 killing of a teenager at a traffic stop that sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and riots. The investigating judge, however, is yet to issue an order for a trial, and the policeman's lawyer can appeal.
The police officer, identified only as Florian M., has been charged with voluntary homicide but was released from custody in November 2023 after five months in detention. The prosecutor's office in Nanterre on Monday recommended that the police officer be tried, and that charges against a colleague for complicity in murder be dropped, it said.
The officer shot Nahel Merzouk, 17, at close range during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on June 27, 2023, in an incident captured on mobile phone footage that went viral. The mobile phone footage contradicted the police's original version of events according to which Merzouk had driven at the officer. The footage showed two police officers standing by the side of a stationary car, with one pointing a weapon at its driver.
The images, and apparent disconnect with the official version of events, caused public outrage. The two officers claimed their lives were in danger because they were trapped between the car and a wall. But, the investigation showed, the teenager's car "was blocked in traffic, and even if he had tried to restart the car, he does not appear to have represented an immediate threat" to the policemen. "It seems that the reason for the shot being fired was the extreme tension of the situation. But as an experienced police officer, [the policeman] should have kept his cool," the final report concluded.
In May, the probe included the re-enactment of the crime scene, with the police officer, the colleague who was on duty with him that day, and several witnesses present. The analysis also dismissed accounts by witnesses and fellow passengers that the police officers had hit the teenager.
Frank Berton, the lawyer of the teenager's mother, said his client welcomed the news. Mounia Merzouk has been hoping for a trial to establish that her son's murder was intentional, he said. "The act was voluntary and the intention to kill clear," he added.
Linda Kebbab, of police union Un1té, said she was "astounded" by the prosecutors' announcement. She asked how a police officer could possibly end up in court when their only aim had been to "make streets safer."