Attacks by police on ethnic and religious minority youths are a disturbingly regular occurrence in France, especially on housing estates. They range from day-to-day assaults that are seldom reported, to outrages that for all the right reasons make international news.
The latest triggered days of rioting in the western city of Nantes. The violence followed the fatal shooting of Aboubakar Fofana, a 22-year-old from a Guinean background, around council properties in the district of Breil in early July. A so-far unnamed officer with the CRS, a notoriously pugilistic unit that translates as Republican Security Companies, has been charged with manslaughter. The victim’s family are being supported by civil rights groups in calling for this indictment to be raised to murder.
It is essential that Officer X, ...
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