Left-wing politicians in France have expressed outrage over a GoFundMe fundraising push for the French police officer accused of killing Nahel M, an incident which sparked a wave of country-wide rioting.
The officer has been detained on homicide charges after allegedly shooting the minor multiple times after the 17-year-old failed to stop at a traffic checkpoint.
Citizens in France largely support the police according to a recent poll, with 69 per cent of people saying that they condemn the rioting, and 57 per cent expressing confidence in the law enforcement agencies.
The donation page for the Parisian police officer and his family seems to reflect this, with the GoFundMe site total now sitting at more than €1.4 million at the time of writing.
Meanwhile, a similar fundraiser for the mother of the dead teen has yet to reach €350,000.
However, the surge in support for the law enforcement official has enraged politicians on the French Left, with Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure attacking the American for-profit crowdfunding platform GoFundMe for hosting a “pot of shame”.
Vous hébergez une cagnotte de la honte @gofundme . Vous entretenez une fracture déjà béante en participant au soutien d’un policier mis en examen pour homicide volontaire. Clôturez !
— Olivier Faure (@faureolivier) July 2, 2023
Meanwhile, La France Insoumise (LFI) assemblyman David Guiraud lashed out at the fund as being for the so-called “assassin of Nahel”, attacking the government for not trying to take the GoFundMe page down.
“The assumed message is ‘kill Arabs and you will become millionaires’, and the government watches this horror pass without saying anything …” he wrote, describing the whole situation as “repugnant”.
Another member of LFI, Manuel Bompard, labelled the fundraiser for the officer as “scandalous” and a “provocation”.
Meanwhile, Minister Delegate for the City and Housing, Olivier Klein, denounced the campaign as being launched by “a person close to the far Right”.
However, the majority of ministers within the administration of French President Emmanuel Macron largely appear to want to avoid discussing the issue in depth; Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti, for instance appeared to play it down during a recent interview.
“Everyone can express their feelings and contribute to a fund,” he said, although he added that he did not think the fundraiser for the policeman would help with “appeasement”.
Meanwhile, GoFundMe itself has so far rejected calls to shut down the fundraising effort for the officer.
“Currently, this campaign complies with our terms of use as the funds will be paid directly to the family in question,” a spokesman for the US tech giant insisted.
“The family has been added as a beneficiary and therefore the funds will be paid directly to them.”
