French presidential candidate Raphaël Glucksmann blamed a climate of racism and xenophobia in France on Monday for a deadly shooting attack in Trappes and La Verrière that killed a 26-year-old man and injured five other people.
Speaking on Monday, October 26 on Bonjour ! La Matinale TF1, the flagship morning programme on France's largest commercial television network, the candidate for the Socialist Party and Place Publique told host Élizabeth Martichoux that Friday's bloody racist rampage in the Yvelines department did not come out of nowhere.
Glucksmann said the gunman had emptied the magazine of an automatic weapon into a man simply because he was Black and shot a 12-year-old girl eight times in the body. He insisted that such an attacker did not emerge from nothing, arguing that the violence grew out of a climate of xenophobia and racism that had taken hold across the country.
The Member of the European Parliament pointed to commentary on certain television shows where speakers compare migrants to bedbugs and the Muslim religion to a virus, saying such rhetoric creates an atmosphere of violence, racism and xenophobia in France.
Suspect in Trappes and La Verrière shooting moved to psychiatric unit
Friday's bloodshed unfolded across Trappes and the neighbouring municipality of La Verrière, two suburban towns in the Yvelines department southwest of Paris. On Friday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron described the attack as a turning point for the nation.
Macron said the shooting was a planned terrorist act aimed at killing fellow citizens and children because of the colour of their skin or the religion attributed to them.
France's National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office, known as the PNAT, said police custody of the 39-year-old main suspect, identified as Kévin T., was suspended on Sunday morning on psychiatric grounds. In line with the conclusions of a psychiatric expert, authorities transferred the suspect to the psychiatric infirmary of the Paris police prefecture for an observation period that could last up to 48 hours.
Prosecutors said the medical evaluation would determine whether the suspect's mental health allows investigators to resume questioning him. Established in 2019, the PNAT is the specialised French prosecution service with nationwide jurisdiction over terrorism offences, and French criminal procedure requires police custody to be paused if a medical examination finds a detainee unfit for interrogation.
Anti-racism rallies called in Paris and across France
The attack has already prompted public tributes and calls for nationwide demonstrations. Hundreds of people gathered in Aubervilliers, a suburb on the northern edge of Paris, for a silent march in tribute to Pengo Bossio Wangi following the violence in the Yvelines.
Several associations and trade unions, including the Human Rights League and SOS Racisme, have called for rallies on Monday in Paris and across France to support the victims and denounce the normalisation of racist hatred. Founded in 1898 and 1984 respectively, the Human Rights League and SOS Racisme are two of France's longest-standing civil liberties and anti-discrimination organisations.
Glucksmann, who co-founded the centre-left movement Place Publique in 2018 and has served in the European Parliament since 2019 in alliance with the Socialist Party, said he would travel to Trappes this coming Friday.
He said he wanted to deliver the simple message that there is still a France attached to an indivisible and anti-racist republic, adding that he hoped hundreds of thousands of people would turn out to express that view.
