Pauline Bock writes:

As of this week, a crowdfunding campaign set up by the French far right in support of the police officer who shot and killed Nahel M, a 17-year-old from Nanterre, has now surpassed €1.4m. Around the same time that Nahel’s killer’s fund passed the €1m mark, it was reported that at least 120 young people who had been arrested in the unrest unleashed by his death had already been sent to prison.

So far, this “swift, firm and systematic judicial response” to the riots, as demanded by the justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti, has been the only real response by the government to the unrest that has swept across French cities. Locals have been met with curfews and reduced transport in some cities, and in every cité where cars have burned and shops have been looted, the police presence has grown exponentially, with 45,000 officers deployed across France on Friday night.

All this is symptomatic of the French government’s extraordinary creativity in its efforts to steer away from the reason of the banlieues’ anger – the police killing of a teenager, shot at point blank range in broad daylight after “refusing to comply” with an order – and avoid questioning the brutality of its police. [Continue reading…]