A fundraising campaign for the police officer who killed Nahel Merzouk has raised 900,000 euros, compared to just 150,000 euros pledged to the boy’s family (Picture: Getty)
More than €900,000 (£770,000) has been raised for the police officer whose killing of a Muslim teenager sparked six nights of rioting across France.
Set up by right-wing populists and the officer’s colleagues, the crowdfunding campaigns have received significantly more than the €150,000 (£128,000) pledged to the victim’s family, according to The Times.
The officer – who has not been named, but is known to be married with a child – shot 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk dead at point-blank range during a traffic stop last Tuesday.
A video of the incident appears to show the teenager, of Algerian and Moroccan descent, posed no threat to the officer and his colleagues, whom the defendant claims he was trying to protect.
The killing, which has reignited long-running debates in France over police violence and racism toward racially mixed urban communities, resulted in more than 45,000 police officers being deployed across the country to quell several nights of unrest.
More than 1,300 arrests were made on Friday, 719 on Saturday and 78 on Sunday, with the numbers dropping off almost entirely after the victim’s grandmother Nadia called for an end to the violence in a televised interview.
She said: ‘I say to the people who are breaking things up – stop.
Merzouk was shot dead during a traffic stop last Tuesday
The killing has reignited long-running debates about systemic racism and police brutality in France (Picture: Anadolu Agency)
‘Nahel is dead. My daughter had just one child. She’s lost, it’s over, my daughter has no life.’
Eric Dupond Moretti, the French justice minister, has been quoted as saying the efforts to raise money for the accused were only ‘fuelling the fire’ of unrest, and accused the crowdfunders of ‘instrumentalising’ the boy’s death for political ends.
Olivier Faure, first secretary of the opposition Socialist Party, further added they were ‘perpetuating… a gaping division’ in French society.
Merzouk’s death sparked six riots of rioting across the country (Picture: Lafargue Raphael/ABACA/Shutterstock)
More than 45,000 police officers were mobilised each night to quell the unrest (Picture: Alexis JUMEAU/SIPA/Shutterstock)
President Emmanuel Macron held a cabinet session earlier in the week to direct efforts to restore calm to the country, having cancelled an official state visit to Germany.
Responses from the international community have also been met with hostility from French officials.
The country’s foreign ministry answered criticism from UN human rights officials by saying that any suggestion of systemic discrimination, racism or brutality among French police forces was ‘totally unfounded.’
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