On Wednesday, June 28, actor Matthieu Kassovitz reacted to Nahel’s death by declaring in particular that young people from the suburbs were “sons but not thugs, not criminals. They don’t have guns…it’s going on and the police just aren’t trained enough…As long as the police keep killing children, the only way to find a balance is to convict the policeman.” . Yesterday, guest on RMC, the director of La Haine, a 1995 film whose plot is a riot between young people from the suburbs and the police, commented on the violent events following the tragedy in Nanterre.
At first the actor gave his point of view on what he considers a police blunder: “As usual, the first police statements were false…”. According to him, the reaction of the police was clearly disproportionate: “People are ready to accept the accidents but what they do not accept is the lack of justice behind it, the lack of discernment between who Nahel was and what we did to him. We all did stupid things at 17 and our children will do the same. But you can’t condemn Nahel with ifs, “and if he had run over someone”. Otherwise we are all condemnable as soon as we pass 50 km/h…”.
The riots of last week are in his eyes an act of revenge by young people in the suburbs. However, he believes that sociological and cultural reasons, in particular, are at the origin of this increase in violence: “It is inexcusable but it is explainable. The explanation is that it’s been like that for 30 years. I made a film La Haine, about the same things, a blunder and violence. Nothing has evolved. It’s hard, it’s really hard. We are shooting towards the United States and this side of ultra-violence”.
“Police unions saying he’s a thug who deserved what he got. This kind of thing, it goes to a level where there we are in pure and hard racism and I think it is extremely harmful for the whole of society … ”. The police support kitty launched by a former spokesperson for Éric Zemmour is an inappropriate initiative: “After these images, I find it hard to support this police officer. With all the examples that we see of what the police are capable of doing, I find it inhuman and dehumanizing to pay him money.
Mathieu Kassovitz does not spare the anti-cop positions taken by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “There are always idiots who take it up in politics…”. Is he thinking specifically of the former presidential candidate in this instance? “In a sense, yes. Politically when he collects this stuff. The first thing to do when you are a politician, when you have a minimum of grandeur, is to appeal for calm…”.