Rapper Booba judges the state “far too soft and weak” and regrets that young people are “not afraid of the police”, in an interview where he is asked about the riots that occurred in France after the death of Nahel.
In this interview published by the newspapers of the Ebra group, the 46-year-old singer describes the death of young Nahel as a “sad blunder”, killed at the end of June by a policeman in Nanterre. “Of course it was shocking. The policeman was obviously not in mortal danger,” said Booba.
“As for the riots, I find above all that the police, the judicial-prison system, and more generally the State, do not command respect,” he continues. “Young people are not afraid of the police, the state is much too soft and weak”.
The native of Hauts-de-Seine adds that in his opinion “the prison sentences are too light and above all rarely applied, the police are discredited”. The rapper, who lives in Miami, believes that in the United States “it’s far from perfect but you don’t challenge the police to a fight”.
Booba, whose real name is Elie Yaffa, sees the riots as an “abscess that needed to burst”. “It was not necessarily due to the death of little Nahel, it is the expression of a malaise, of being fed up, of boredom in the suburbs, of the financial situation”, he observes. “They let off steam,” he said of the rioters. “They know very well that it won’t solve anything, it’s just to exist.”
Booba himself has had trouble with the authorities in the past for violence, notably in 2018 following a fight at Orly airport with another musician, Kaaris. Following this incident, the two men were sentenced to 18 months suspended prison sentence and 50,000 euros fine as well as to pay more than 45,000 euros in damages caused.