Several thousand people protested in Paris on Sunday over the death in custody of a Mauritanian immigrant worker, yelling slogans against “a police force that kills us”, an AFP journalist saw.
The controversy over his death is just the latest in a series of cases in which activists have accused French police of racism and violence.
The demonstration gathered at the shelter in the northeast of the capital where the man, El Hacen Diarra, 35, had been living and in front of which he was violently arrested by police on the night of January 14.
Video filmed by neighbours, shared on social media, showed a policeman punching what appears to be a man on the ground as another officer stands by and watches.
The protesters, gathered to support Diarra’s family, members of whom also took part, unfurled banners reading “Justice” and “RIP”, before marching to the local police station.
The family has filed a legal complaint accusing security forces of “intentional violence that led to a death”, their lawyer, Yassine Bouzrou told AFP a week ago.
Paris police have launched an internal investigation into what happened.
France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez on Sunday again rejected calls for the officers concerned to be suspended until there is clear evidence they did something wrong.
“The officer who, in the footage, throws two punches will have to explain himself,” he told Sunday´s edition of Le Parisien newspaper.
“But nothing indicates, at this stage, what the causes of death are,” he added.
‘Kind, smiling’ man
According to the family, Diarra had been drinking a coffee outside the shelter when he encountered police officers and the situation deteriorated.
Prosecutors say police alleged they had seen Diarra roll a cannabis joint and proceeded to arrest him when he refused a body search.
He was taken into custody for allegedly resisting arrest and allegedly possessing “a brown substance resembling cannabis” and “forged administrative documents”.
While waiting on a bench at the police station, officers said Diarra was seen to pass out and paramedics were called who tried to revive him, but he was pronounced dead.
At the protest, Diarra’s cousin, Diankou Sissoko, told AFP: “I don’t believe at all that we will see justice, because even before El Hacen died there were other deaths and there has never been justice.”
She described Diarra as “kind, smiling” and “quiet”, nothing like the police account that described him as aggressive.
There have been an increasing number of allegations of police violence in France in recent years, notably during the “yellow vest” protests between 2018 and 2019.
Activists have repeatedly accused French police of violence and racism, but few cases make it to criminal court in France, as most are dealt with internally.
Prosecutors have called for a police officer to be tried over the 2023 killing of a teenager at a traffic stop, in a case that sparked nationwide protests.
A court is to rule in March whether he will face a criminal trial over the killing of 17-year-old Nahel M.
In 2024, a judge gave suspended jail sentences to three officers who inflicted irreversible rectal injuries to a black man during a stop-and-search in 2017.
