Mourners line street for funeral of teenager shot dead by police in France

The body of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk is now being buried in the Mont-Valérien cemetery in the north-western Parisian suburb of Nanterre.

The men have gone into the cemetery to the burial site, while women remain outside on the road.

French President Emmanuel Macron has postponed a state visit to Germany because of the unrest in France, both countries have said.

The government deployed 45,000 police and several armoured vehicles overnight to tackle the worst crisis of Macron’s leadership since the “Yellow Vest” protests, which brought much of France to a standstill in late 2018.

The French President’s state visit to Germany had been due to begin on Sunday but was postponed on Saturday afternoon.

Emotional mourners are following the body of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk to the Mont-Valérien cemetery in Nanterre, where he will be laid to rest.

Hundreds left the Ibn Badis Mosque – where a funeral ceremony was held for the teenager – crying and chanting, “There is no deity except God [“la illaha illa allah” in Arabic].”

Crowds of people are now marching to the cemetery in front of the coffin, which is being driven in a car.

During the funeral prayers earlier, the lines of mourners were praying in the middle of the street.

Watch a live view of Nanterre, a Paris suburb, on Saturday (1 July) as the funeral is held for a teenager who was shot dead by a French police officer.

Nahel Merzouk, 17, died after he was shot in the chest as he sat at the wheel of a stationary Mercedes last Tuesday.

The teenager will be laid to rest after an Islamic ceremony close to his home in the north-western Paris suburb.

Queues of mourners, family members and friends are lining up outside of the Ibn Badis Mosque and institute in Nanterre where the funeral of Nahel is due to start soon. The overflow lined up for afternoon prayers on the street in front. A glaring absence in the area is the police.

The local community and the mosque set up barricades with their own volunteers as stand-in security. No riot police officers are to be seen, clearly an attempt to calm tensions around this difficult moment after days of violence.

Outside the mosque, Therese, 60 a friend of the family who lives next door to Nahel’s grandmother, says the community is in complete shock.

“Nahel, was kind and smiley – he helped me with my groceries. When he was younger I would give I’m pocket money,” she tells The Independent visibly upset.

“I’m shaken, we all are – especially as a mother with children living in this neighbourhood, we’re scared and extremely sad.

“He was so young he has his whole life in front of him- that is all gone.”

She said the way the authorities had originally portrayed Nahel as a “troublemaker” was disturbing and another example of how the youth in the more impoverished parts of Nanterre are treated.

“Every teenager does something a little rebellious we have all been 17. He has never done drugs, he wasn’t bad.”

“The police regularly verbally brutalise the young here,” she continues.

“Thank god there is a video, the police are lying all the time. This might make change.

“We have an expression – 100 years for the thief, one day for the master. This really embodies the situation here.”

Members of the Algerian French community said Nahel’s killing was the “final drop of water that caused the vase to overflow”.

“There is no equality if you’re not white,” said Hadhrami belhaschemi, 35 outside the mosque. “This is just one example of a problem with the whole system. I feel like I’m only French on paper.”

A sketch of Nehal showing the 17-year-old drawn in black and white with the words “Justice for Nahel” written in blue letters across his chest has been shared with The Independent by his family’s lawyers.

The teenager was shot dead by a police officer in Nanterre last Tuesday, sparking four consecutive nights of violent riots across France between protestors and police.

Buildings and vehicles have been torched and stores looted in the unrest, which has spread nationwide, including to cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille.

More than 200 police officers have been injured, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, adding that the average age of those arrested was 17. Looters have ransacked dozens of shops and torched some 2,000 vehicles since the riots started.

Friday night’s arrests included 80 people in Marseille, which is home to many people of North African descent.

Social media images showed an explosion rocking the old port area of the southern city, but authorities said they did not believe there were any casualties.

Rioters in France’s second-largest city had looted a gun store and stole hunting rifles, but no ammunition, police said.

Mayor Benoit Payan called on the government to send extra troops to tackle “pillaging and violence” in Marseille, where three police officers were slightly wounded early on Saturday.

In Lyon, France’s third-largest city, police deployed armoured personnel carriers and a helicopter, while in Paris, they cleared protesters from the Place de la Concorde.

Darmanin had asked local authorities to halt buses and trams, while Macron urged parents to keep children at home.

You can watch a live view of Nanterre, a Paris suburb, on Saturday as the funeral is held for a teenager who was shot dead by a French police officer.

Nahel Merzouk, 17, died after he was shot in the chest as he sat at the wheel of a stationary Mercedes last Tuesday.

The teenager will be laid to rest after an Islamic ceremony close to his home in the north-western Paris suburb,

Family and friends are viewing the open coffin of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk before it will be taken to a mosque for a ceremony and later burial in a town cemetery.

The Islamic ceremony will be held at 2pm (1pm UK time) at the Grande Mosquée Ibn Badis close to the teenager’s home in the Parisian suburb Nanterre.