PARIS: The French policeman who shot and killed a teenager at point-blank range in 2023 outside Paris, sparking days of riots, is to go on trial on a murder charge, a court and prosecutors said Tuesday.

The trial of the officer, who has been charged with the murder of Nahel M., 17, could take place in the second or third quarter of 2026, the court and prosecutor in the Paris suburb of Nanterre where the killing took place said in a joint statement.

The officer, identified as Florian M., was released from custody in November 2023 after five months in detention.

Mobile footage of him shooting Nahel inside a car during a traffic control on a busy street went viral. The anger sparked protests that degenerated into rioting and led to scenes of devastation nationwide.

The police initially maintained that Nahel had driven his car at the officer but this was
contradicted by the video, which showed two officers standing outside a stationary car, with one pointing a weapon at its driver.

“This order for a trial is both disappointing and not surprising,” said Laurent-Franck Lienard, the officer’s lawyer.

“The investigating judge would have had to be courageous to take a different position than that of the prosecution” which pushed for the trial, the lawyer told AFP, adding that he would lodge an appeal against the order.

“We maintain that the shooting was legitimate,” he said.

Frank Berton, the lawyer for Nahel’s mother, expressed his “satisfaction” over the move.

“We are just seeing the law being applied... Now all that remains is to convince the court,” he said.

The move to try the officer over the death of Nahel, who was of north African origin, comes against the background of new tensions in France over racism and security.

A man who had posted racist videos shot dead his Tunisian neighbor and badly wounded a Turkish man in the south of France at the weekend, and a Malian man was stabbed to death in a mosque in April.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who is taking an increasingly hard line on immigration issues, has faced accusations of not taking a strong enough stance against such crimes and even fueling a racist climate.

But he said Monday that “every racist act is an anti-French act.”