While Zemmour called the rioters “scum” and called for some of their requests for French nationality to be refused, Le Pen spoke more sympathetically about the victim. Rather than capitalizing on the traditional far-right rallying calls of “riots, ethnic minorities, rebelling against public authority, the police, burning down public buildings,” and more, she has adopted a more moderate tone than she has in the past, and far more so than Zemmour. Le Pen also tempered her rhetoric in response to this crisis, in what Marliere said was an attempt to appeal to more middle-of-the-road voters. The fundraiser is hence helping to bring the politics of the far right into the mainstream, he added. This sort of statement could appeal to a majority of French people – and most of them would never contemplate voting for the National Rally,” Marliere said. This language “is designed to appeal to a much broader audience than typical far-right voters. MASSIVELY support him and our police forces!” it read. “Support for the family of the Nanterre police officer, Florian.M, who did his job and is now paying a high price. Many far-right sympathizers took the protests as proof that the rioters “disrespect France, they hate it, they don’t want to integrate, they’re riff-raffs,” and as another example of how “France’s multiculturalism has failed,” Marliere told CNN.īut while this rhetoric proliferated online, the fundraiser itself used more measured language. Police officers walk near a protest in Paris on June 30, 2023. The killing of Nahel, who was of Algerian origin, and the riots his death incited, provoked a “typical, traditional far-right” reaction, according to Philippe Marliere, a professor of French politics at University College London. ET), but urged that its supporters continued the “national momentum” the campaign had built. On Tuesday evening, Messiha announced on Twitter that the fundraiser would close at midnight local time (6 p.m. The family has been added as a beneficiary and therefore the funds will be paid directly to them,” said a GoFundMe spokesperson to CNN affiliate BFMTV. “Currently, this fund complies with our terms of use because the funds will be paid directly to the family in question. “I ask myself if behind all this there isn’t an instrumentalization (of the killing),” he added.ĭespite the criticism, host website GoFundMe had refused to remove the campaign. “Everyone can express their feelings and contribute to a fund… But I think, in this case, that it doesn’t go in the direction of appeasement,” Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said in an interview with France Inter on Monday. Having previously stood as a candidate for the National Rally – the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen – Messiha later worked as spokesperson for the party of Eric Zemmour, another far-right candidate in last year’s presidential election, whose platform was more extreme than Le Pen’s.įrench lawmakers have criticized the fundraiser and questioned the motives of the organizers. The fundraiser for the police officer, who has been charged with voluntary homicide, was set up by French media personality and former politician Jean Messiha. What explains this divergence? And what does it tell us about French politics? More than 85,000 people had donated to support the police officer, while just over 21,000 had donated to support Nahel. The other, for the family of the police officer who shot him.īy early Wednesday morning, the fundraiser for the police officer had raised a final total of more than €1.6 million ($1.7 million), while that for Nahel had topped €400,000 ($450,000). After a police officer in France shot dead unarmed 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk during a traffic stop in Paris last week, two fundraisers were set up.

Undercover detective shot