When I submitted my analysis of the latest French social crisis - the atrocious police killing of Nahel during a routine stop, and the fierce, unjustified rioting that followed - there were two important matters I did not know about.
I heard later about the vile attack on the home and family of an entirely blameless mayor in L'Haye-les-Roses. And later still about the utterly repugnant crowdfunding whipround for the family of a certain Florian, the police officer who killed Nahel Merzouk.
Nahel's photo, released by his mother. Described by Wikipedia as fair use
As might be expected, that nauseating gesture is the work of a figure of France's far right. Jean Messiha. I could not help thinking about that aspect of French politics last night when watching Arte's excellent documentaries on the Ku Klux Klan and its occasional spells of respectability. The mere existence of KKK is an even more shaming indictment of American popular opinion than France's stubborn and growing attachment to its own form, lightly sanitised, of rightwing extremism.
The fund for Florian has raised more than 1.6m euros as I write, many times more than a similar collection for the family of Nahel.
There is a perfectly good argument against the existence of such appeals for anyone, perpetrator or victim, save in exceptional circumstances. I can see no argument at all for soliciting large sums of money for the benefit of a man who has been charged with voluntary homicide and has, at least, offered an apology from his prison cell.
Just in case my complaint is thought to be unfounded, let me remind you of the case of Christophe Dettinger, a former boxer who used his skills from the ring to pummel two gendarmes during a Gilets Jaunes protest in Paris. He was eventually jailed for a year, but not before a cagnotte in his favour had raised 145,000 euros.
Dettinger's wages of sin were, in the end, denied to him when a court found them to be contrary to the interests of public order.
What satisfaction that decision must have brought to the hearts of members of the police union Alliance, which had condemned the fund as "totally misplaced", and another police union, which described it as offering a "blank cheque to commit violence".
Exactement. The prosecution rests.
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