A fundraising initiative to assist the family of Florian M., the French police officer at the center of recent nationwide riots in his country, has collected in excess of a million dollars.
In the prefecture of Nanterre, Florian M. fatally shot a 17-year-old Algerian-heritage teenager named Nahel, who had a criminal record, during a traffic stop last Tuesday.
The incident, caught on camera, showed the young individual attempting to evade the two officers at a traffic stop.
A secondary footage angle apparently shows one officer positioned on the car’s hood as the young driver stepped on the gas, prompting the fatal shot.
The incident has sparked international attention, with the UN rights office recently commenting that the teen’s death was “a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement.”
Others say the French officer has merely “done his job.”
Since then, a GoFundMe campaign has gathered around €934,000 ($1,017,000) to support the embattled officer’s family, according to a report from Breitbart News.
The crowdfunding campaign was initiated by Jean Messiha, an Egyptian-born French economist and controversial media figure.
Messiha sought to rally behind the police officer who, in his words, “has done his job and who is today paying a high price.”
In Messiha’s words: “Macron took up the cause for Nahel. We take up the cause of the police and the gendarmerie. This exemplary policeman, Florian M. only did his duty. I support him and I have set up a crowd-funder to help his family in the face of the public hounding of which he is a victim.”
Messiha took pride in the fact that his fundraising effort has vastly outdone a comparable one for the teenager’s family, which raised a comparatively meager sum of €180,000 during the same period.
On the other hand, the teenager’s mother perceives the shooting as an act of racism, stating, “He saw a little Arab-looking kid, he wanted to take his life… A police officer cannot take his gun and fire at our children, take our children’s lives.”
In a twist of events, the deceased teenager’s grandmother has urged for calm, condemning the rioting in response to her grandson’s death.
“I tell the people who are rioting this: Do not smash windows, attack schools or buses. Stop! It’s the mums who are taking the bus, it’s the mums who walk outside,” she pleaded on Sunday.
