The "young Nahel" affair: a life-size social test
Author(s)
Patrick de Pontonx*
Published on July 12, 2023 - 09:30
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According to the author of this column, the Nahel affair is part of an overall context that cannot be ignored.
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*Patrick de Pontonx is a lawyer at the Paris Bar
TRIBUNE/OPINION - The homicide of Nahel X caused the disorders and violence that we know. It is important to return to these events, which in many respects characterize the state of our society.
One of the first eager reactions in this affair was that of the President of the Republic. Before any investigation was yet initiated, the first magistrate of France declared:
"I want to express the emotion of the whole Nation after the death of young Nahel and to tell his family all our solidarity and the affection of the Nation. We have a teenager who was killed, which is inexplicable (...) In this context, it takes respect and affection for young Nahel and his family".
Inappropriate remarks
These remarks, lunar, made from the outset the choice of the party of the victim against that of the policeman. They were reminiscent of those of President Hollande when, in February 2017, he shared an equal eagerness to give his official support to "young Théo" Luhaka, then hospitalized. Mr. Holland then thought fit to declare to the journalists present that Theo was a
“young person who has always been known for exemplary behavior”. Once this judgment of authority has been made, the person concerned could only be a victim of the police violence which had led him to the hospital. The newspaper
Le Parisien , reporting this fact, then concluded:
"Under the gaze of Théo's mother, dignified, with misty eyes, The evocation of the mother underlined the tender aspect of the scene.
Five years later, however, the "young Théo" was condemned with his brothers for a fraud, between 2014 and 2018 (and therefore during a period including the presidential visit), bringing, to the tune of nearly a million euros, on funds from public aid intended for associations for the integration of disadvantaged young people.
This behavior of the public authorities, in itself, is of the highest interest. In a hurry to come to light, they believe they have to implicitly disavow the police from the outset and flatter those who opposed them. No doubt they find themselves spontaneously inclined to it by the natural perversion of their minds. But it is above all that they fear the reaction of the "suburbs", of the "neighborhoods", where they know full well that firefighters, doctors and policemen already enter only with fear, when they still enter them.
One who defies the law
These public authorities know all the explosive power of these territories, which they never have the courage to disarm other than by pretending, on occasion, to befriend them. In front of the angry opponent, the weak dog lies down and rolls onto its back in the hope of coaxing him and being spared. Mr. Macron, and others, ride on their backs. So, adapting their speech to their behavior, here is that the one who defies the law is presented in another way; what he was able to do, why the police arrested or neutralized him and without which the event would never have happened, all this disappears like an erased background image. He who defies the law is no more than a son, a brother, a "young" victim. Since only the violence she suffered now appears, we have to sympathize with it because the victim succumbed to police malice, she has a mother and her friends liked her. Cowardice, complicity and, in a certain way, the betrayal of the confidence of the police are then the price knowingly accepted by the rulers in order to buy a precarious social peace.
There is therefore no reason to be surprised that the behavior of the public authorities, relayed by a judicial laxity repeatedly denounced, greatly encourages certain individuals in the "suburbs" to settle in para-social lifestyles of delinquency which they consider normal, conquered on the common law. It is also not surprising that, at the same time, police personnel are increasingly discouraged from carrying out a profession which exposes them both to the violence of thugs and to the ingratitude, contempt or even blows from the public power that employs him. It is so easy for her to send the police to hell to wipe out the fires of her disastrous policies! To them the vigils, the stress, the exhaustion, the wounds,
This case takes place in a context of growing weakening of the State, which deals with the delinquent world of these "suburbs" as if they were partners with whom to negotiate and who should sometimes be spared. This can potentially be the source of an aggravation of social risks.
In the declaration of the President of the Republic, who, on the evening of these events, went, in his customary lightness, to waddle with his wife at an Elton John concert, there is no offender in the victim, 12 times arrested at the age of 17, yet never convicted, and in a proven situation of delinquency at the time of the facts which cost her her life. There is just a "young Nahel", broke in the prime of life, whose death is "inexplicable". Everything happens as if he had been shot blind by a crazed policeman while he was walking quietly with his family, and not after multiple traffic offenses aboard a racing car he did not have the right to drive, thereby endangering the lives of others. In short, as if he had been, deep down,
language issue
This expression, "young Nahel", is already revealing. MP Anne-Laurence Petel, although belonging to the presidential majority, did not fail to raise it recently on her Twitter account.
Of course one is young at 17 and death is a tragedy. However, it is one thing to consider this youth in itself, and to consider it in relation to the circumstances. In the first case, we apply ourselves to considering only young age in order to incline to compassion; in the second, we relate this young age to the facts, which singularly changes the perspectives. Because then, what appears is that a man, only 17 years old, is already well engaged in the paths of delinquency, which hardly inclines, this time, to compassion. Obviously, it is exclusively to the reception of the first meaning of the expression "young Nahel" that Mr. Macron and the press in general, invite each Frenchman. The "young Nahel" is from all of our family. We cannot be insensitive to the common loss of a loved one. From then on are acquired our
“respect”, and our very
“affection” , says the President of the Republic.
For a bit, while the policeman already publicly considered guilty is behind bars, Mr. Macron would publicly sympathize with the pain of Mbappé, so dear to his heart, of having "pain for (his) France"
and would cry with him. the loss of a
"little angel".
Since then, framed by the Traoré family, the victim's mother has called for
"revolt" . This did not move Mr. Macron, nor did the fact that she later decided to end it. The riots that we know have occurred, where anger, false anger, manipulation and simple savage desire to pillage have mingled. The extreme left, always at ease when it comes to chaos, throws oil on the fire, inviting at least implicitly to continue the violence, that the thugs (those who break, those who burn media libraries, schools, buses...) have qualified as
"justice". Obviously Macron's angelism did not work.
The police paid a heavy price. More than 250 wounded to date, of which we will be excused to recall that they also have families, which no official speech will really move. Like I said, that's their job. In Marseille, two off-duty police officers were ambushed and seriously injured, including stab wounds. More recently, a policeman was beaten up in Bobigny in front of his 2-year-old daughter. Always effective, the Macronian discourse replied to this violence that it was
"inadmissible". Big deal ! Perhaps it will take a few policemen being killed for Mr. Macron, in particular, to leave his moon and finally take stock of the situation, although in the balance, the life of a policeman will never weigh same weight as that of a rioter. The disappointed seductive verbiage followed, as everyone knows, the capricious but sterile authoritarianism so fond of the master of Élysée.
In this regard, the imbalance that journalists or
"specialists" strive to maintain in the respective treatment of the policeman and the
"young Nahel" in this affair calls, it seems to me, for the following two corrective observations.
The first is that the self-proclaimed judges of the policeman, who hastened to find him guilty, from the journalist to the overpaid footballer, not to mention the director Mathieu Kassowitz, are usually people exposed to the major risks of biting their tongue while eating or to injure themselves in their noble sporting or artistic activities. The police officer in question, like his colleagues, exposes his life or his physical integrity to daily violence, with an often derisory salary, to defend the safety of all in the continual anguish of his own family.
). Whether or not we like the police is a fact, which should encourage more modesty in the judgments made. Many police officers are injured or killed in their missions throughout the year without this arousing the slightest sympathy. The success of the kitty opened in favor of the family of the police officer concerned in this case, to the great displeasure of Mrs Borne in particular, who is concerned about the far-right origins of this initiative, shows that many French people are not dupes of this injustice, beyond the political chapels.
Contempt of the police
The second observation is that the policeman in question, a former soldier, was until then, whether we like it or not, exemplary in his profession. Even more: he did his duty daily in the exercise of this profession, with the risks that we have mentioned. I say his duty. The fact that he may have – justice will decide – make a mistake in this exercise does not change anything in this continued desire to fulfill his duty. In this he deserves respect. Nahel, on the other hand, led a life at odds with this requirement. Already at 17, he usually lived in contempt of the law, of authority, of the police. The facts that caused his death are facts of proven delinquency, which he himself caused. In this, this man does not deserve special respect, with due respect to Mr.
These circumstances make it possible to recall that, in a normal political society, there is an “up” and there is a “down”, and that the State must ensure this order, unless it ruins all social life. Above, the interest of the country and the service of the State; below, and always, delinquency, its multiple ramifications and its multiple actors, whatever their age. A stab wound from a 15 year old or a 40 year old adult does not make a big difference. It will almost be necessary to be grateful to the rioters for allowing this to be remembered. And to also remember that in a situation of proven delinquency, it is in this case the policeman who is above and below the one who does not respect the law,
Certainly, a police officer can commit a fault in the exercise of his functions, like any person in his, including a head of state, even though he has the privilege of absolving himself of it every day, all shame drunk, by his political tricks. Under no circumstances, however, can a government worthy of the name make common cause, in any way whatsoever, with the fate of a proven offender. Both common sense and honor oppose it. And above all the meaning of the State, which presupposes both. But here, for the sense of the State to be exercised, there must still be a statesman. Mr. Macron, a pretentious sophist of questionable morality lost in politics, is certainly not one.
Above also the dignity of service and the love of France, and below those who do not do everything to love her. Down also those who by their cowardice, their blindness and their incompetence lead this society to violence, without ever finding any other remedy, for decades, than subsidies, sterile city policies, demagogic speeches or repressions, and who only seem to reserve their hatred for those who aspire to see this country straighten out without them.
Notes:
(1) See the book by Aurélie Laroussie and Perrine Sallé,
Whores for cops , the daily hell of law enforcement families , Ed. Ring, Paris 2022.
www.bvoltaire.fr
