Algerian teen’s murder by French police rooted in deep historical racism

Empowering Weak & Oppressed

Crescent International

Dhu al-Hijjah 16, 1444 2023-07-04

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

Last week’s (Tuesday June 27) brutal murder of an Algerian youth by French police is rooted in deep racism in society.

The 17-year-old Nahel Marzouk had violated a traffic signal in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre when the police stopped him.

One policeman pointed his gun at the teen.

As he tried to flee the scene, the policeman shot him in the head, killing him instantly.

Police initially lied about why they murdered the youth, which is not surprising.

They accused the youth of trying to run over an officer.

Virtually the entire French media parroted these police lies without bothering to verify whether there was any truth to them.

It was not until cell phone video from a bystander exposed what had happened: the police had shot the youth while he was fleeing.

The policeman’s life was not in danger; the youth threatened no one; he was fleeing.

The media’s repetition of police lies simply confirmed a basic fact of life in France: it is a deeply racist society.

It was not the first time a person of color has been murdered in cold blood and it won’t be the last.

Had the driver been a white youth, there is no chance he would have been shot and killed.

When protests erupted across the country—the only tool in the hands of the oppressed—they were met with the deployment of 50,000 police officers.

They used tear gas and clubs against the protesters.

On the first day of the protests, more than 900 persons were arrested.

As the protests continued, more arrests followed.

The white racist establishment could not understand why there was so much fuss over the death of one non-while youth.

The powers that be promised to restore “public order”.

They spared no effort in clubbing innocent people for doing nothing more than expressing their anger at the unjustified killing of a young man.

The poor racialized and marginalized minority does not have even the right to protest blatant injustices against them.

Their lives do not matter.

French history is replete with racism and the murder of millions of non-white people across the globe.

France’s murderous campaigns stretch from Vietnam, Haiti, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean to Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean, to North and West Africa.

Its most recent deployment was in Mali where it supported terrorist groups in the name of fighting them.

After 10 years of French military presence, the Malians realised the truth and ordered the French army out of the country.

This, however, was not before France had stolen billions of dollars in gold from Mali which has many gold mines.

It is revealing that while Mali has gold mines, its gold reserves stood at 881.7 tonnes at the end of 2022.

Compare that to France which has no gold mines but its gold reserves were 2436.81 tonnes in January 2023!

It is not rocket science to figure out where France got its gold from.

Plunder of Africa and Asia’s resources was the principal reason behind western colonialism.

France’s most ruthless military campaigns were carried out in Algeria.

Dating back to the early 1800s, French colonisation of Algeria involved the widespread use of brutal violence, torture and mass killings to subdue the Algerian people.

While Algeria was never fully pacified, French brutality continued to inflict massive suffering on the people.

During the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962), more than one million Algerians were slaughtered and systematically tortured by the French regime.

When French citizens of Arab origin—mainly Algerians—protested peacefully in 1961 against colonial brutality in Algeria, French police murdered more than 100 French Arabs in Paris.

Some were even drowned in the river Sienne.

So much for western civilization.

Who can forget the European Union’s Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell’s description late last year of Europe as a garden while the rest of the world was a jungle.

Welcome to the garden as French police mow down non-white protesters!

It is unrealistic to expect any contrition from racists and bigots.

They have to be confronted and their racism and bigotry exposed.

It would not be an easy struggle since the oppressed are faced with massive challenges but what choice do the victims have?

Meanwhile, the white-washing of police brutality and French racism has already begun.

The murderous policeman has been dubbed a “bad apple”.

There appear to be too many “bad apples” in France and indeed in the rest of Europe and the collective west.