‘My son was killed’: France faces backlash over police firearms bill

Paris, France – Issam El Khalfaoui’s teenage son Souhail was shot and killed by a police officer in ۲۰۲۱ in Marseille.

“When my son was killed during a police traffic stop, we realised how difficult it was to bring the truth to light. The police and the justice system took different actions to cover up the evidence. We realised that this was a deeply systemic issue,” El Khalfaoui told Al Jazeera. “The IGPN [National Police] lost the video that captured my son’s murder. The witnesses were not interviewed, and the case file completely disappeared from the court. That is the reality.”

France has one of the highest numbers of fatal police shootings in Western Europe. At least ۶۹ people were killed by police or gendarmerie officers in ۲۰۲۴, compared with ۴۹ in ۲۰۲۳ and ۵۰ in ۲۰۲۲.

Now, French police are again facing scrutiny, this time over their tactics during clashes in education protests. A ۱۵-year-old lost a hand from a police stun grenade, and another officer threw a tear gas canister at close range, shattering a ۱۴-year-old’s jaw and several teeth. The use of stun grenades has since been halted. Authorities say ۷۰۰ police have also been injured.

The unrest comes as a controversial bill that would presume police officers acted in self-defence when using firearms faces a vote in the Senate.

Khalfaoui launched a petition against the draft law that received more than ۷۰۰,۰۰۰ signatures. The measure, which critics describe as a “licence to kill”, was approved by the National Assembly in July.

Several advocacy groups, including Stop State Violence (SAVE), the Human Rights League (LDH) and Amnesty International, as well as left-wing lawmakers, organised protests in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, which drew nearly ۵۰,۰۰۰ people on September ۲۰.

Under the proposed law, police officers and gendarmes would be presumed to have acted in self-defence if they used weapons in the line of duty, placing the burden of proof on the complainant.

For El Khalfaoui, who co-founded SAVE after his ۱۹-year-old son’s death, passing the law would only increase the police’s strength.

“In France, there has been a seizure of power by police unions,” El Khalfaoui said. “There’s a militarisation of the police that has no equivalent in Europe, and resources have been allocated to the police to ensure the police’s loyalty to the government.”

The draft law could entrench a sense of impunity, El Khalfaoui noted.

“It will be impossible to refute this presumption of self-defence,” he said.

Bruno Bartocetti, a regional representative for the police union, told French news channel BFMTV the El Khalfaoui case was an act of “self-defence beyond any doubt” and said Souhail wanted to “start a fight”.

The judicial case was closed in December ۲۰۲۱, but reopened when the family’s attorney filed a complaint for “obstruction of the discovery of truth” after surveillance camera videos disappeared. A new judge was appointed in ۲۰۲۵, and the court’s investigation is ongoing.

‘Draft law enables police impunity’

Nathalie Tehio, president of France’s Human Rights League (LDH), also fears the bill “enables police impunity”.

“If there’s no investigation anymore, that means the police officer can no longer be held responsible for anything,” she told Al Jazeera. “France is a European leader in the number of people killed by the police.”

A ۲۰۱۷ law permitting police officers to wield firearms if a vehicle does not comply with a traffic stop has led to five times as many fatal shootings, according to researchers. At the time, the law had broad political support, although several left-wing politicians have opposed the recent draft bill and participated in protests.

“All parliamentary groups voted in favour of this law in ۲۰۱۷ by a very large majority. There was support across the political spectrum, from the left to the right and the far-right,” Sebastien Roche, a researcher at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), specialising in police and democracy, told Al Jazeera.

After legislative elections in ۲۰۲۴, French President Emmanuel Macron’s party was unable to form an absolute majority to pass legislation without entering a coalition with other parties.

“Successive governments under Emmanuel Macron, especially during his second term, have adopted ideas from the far right,” Roche said.

With France’s presidential elections in six months, political parties are vying for electors, Roche noted.

“The competition is already under way, and in this competition, the right is trying to win over far-right voters because the right in France has lost a great deal of its political strength to the far-right in national and European elections,” he said.

When a police officer shot and killed ۱۷-year-old Nahel Merzouk, a boy of Algerian descent, in ۲۰۲۳, riots spread across the country.

Discrimination leads to more traffic stops, said Roche, and ultimately people of colour are at more risk of violence.

“The way the police monitor people’s behaviour is unfavourable to non-white people,” he said, citing studies he conducted in Bouches-du-Rhone in the Marseille region. “The probability of being stopped (by the police) is more than ۵۰ percent higher for people who are not white.”

In ۲۰۰۱, Omer Mas Capitolin was in a work meeting when a disturbance from a police intervention on the street outside shook the building. Mas Capitolin went downstairs to ask the officers to move, but the police entered the association and handcuffed Mas Capitolin.

“They used a chokehold and pinned me to the ground. I couldn’t breathe or speak,” Mas Capitolin told Al Jazeera.

He later founded the Community House for Supportive Development (MCDS), a grassroots non-profit against police violence and discrimination. In ۲۰۲۱, six NGOs, including MCDS filed a class action suit against the French government, alleging systemic racial discrimination in police identity checks.

“We can call these identity checks discriminatory, along with everything that goes with them, including the refusal to comply, contempt of authority, resistance, and, increasingly today, the issue of illegal and excessive fines imposed on young people,” Mas Capitolin said.

In October, ۲۰۲۳, France’s high court recognised racial profiling during police identity checks, a ruling described by Human Rights Watch (HRW) as “historic”. But the court did not order French authorities to take the “necessary measures to end this long-standing, abusive practice” as it handed down the verdict in the case filed by the six groups, HRW said.

Also in ۲۰۲۱, the French state was condemned for “gross negligence” in an identity check of three high school students in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for racial profiling of Karim Touil.

Despite these rulings, “everything is moving in the opposite direction”, Mas Capitolin said. “France is dealing with kids using military-grade weapons. Police officers are over-equipped and over-armed. I’m devastated.”