About 500 people, according to the police, demonstrated on Saturday in Saint-Etienne to pay tribute to a 26-year-old Gambian fatally stabbed in the street on May 26.
Three Armenians aged 28, 32 and 62, including a father and his son, were indicted and imprisoned for this murder, the possible racist nature of which has, at this stage, not been retained by the prosecution.
The victim succumbed to four stab wounds carried by a group of ten people, under the gaze of residents who filmed the scene. The aggression of this asylum seeker would have started for a
"futile reason"
, before degenerating on the part of individuals become violent
"apparently under the influence of alcohol"
, according to a police source.
Saturday, demonstrators denounced
"the negrophobia which hurts the society"
, chanting
"Justice for Yusufa"
, first name of the victim.
"We think he was provoked because of his skin color
,
"
one of them told AFP. Alongside a brother of the victim and the young man's ex-companion, mother of a two-month-old girl, elected officials, including the mayor of Saint-Etienne, Gaël Perdriau (LR), took part in the procession from the place of death, in front of a building in the city.
At the end of the demonstration, tension rose between the local organizers and representatives of the Black African Defense League (LDNA) from the Paris region. Prevented from accessing the microphone, the leader of this group virulently denounced "
the neocolonialism of France
".