How Unrest in France After Police-Involved Killing Compared With Riots After George Floyd’s Death

Protests and riots erupted following the police-involved fatal shooting of 17-year-old French citizen Nahel Merzouk, who was of Moroccan and Algerian descent, on June 27 in France.

Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, says “certainly what happened in France takes us directly back to 2020” after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“… and I can’t help but wonder: Has [the] U.S. exported this model, where if someone from a minority community is killed by the police, that these very violent mobs are going to regularly pop up and cause such destruction?” Riesasks.

“To be seen, I guess, in France. Unfortunately, the U.S. lived through many months of it in 2020. And a little bit different in terms of what minority group we’re talking about. In this French incident, as Ellie [Krasne-Cohen] explained, the gentleman was of North African descent, and the riots from 2020 that we dealt with in the U.S. was largely about the black community,” Ries says, adding:

However, given our immigration situation, mass migration to the U.S. right now, this is going to be an interesting situation to watch.

Ries and Ellie Krasne-Cohen, a visiting fellow at Independent Women's Forum and former Heritage Foundation employee who now lives in France, join today's episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast" to further discuss the deadly French shooting, and similarities and differences with how French and U.S. media covered the incident.