Assa Traoré, sister Adama Traoré, leads the march marking the fourth anniversary of the death of her brother, Saturday July 18. - Rafael Yaghobzadeh / AP / SIPA

Four years after the death of Adama Traoré during an arrest in Beaumont-sur-Oise, thousands of people began to parade in this city of Val-d'Oise, in a new context of mobilization against police violence. This march is organized by the committee which demands justice for this young 24-year-old black man, who died in the neighboring commune of Persan on July 19, 2016, shortly after his arrest, after a chase with the gendarmes.

Unprecedented, this tribute is for the first time organized by both the Adama Committee and Alternatiba, one of the main organizations of the climate movement, in the name of a common fight against inequalities. "Let us breathe" or "No justice, no peace" could be read on banners brandished in the crowd which began to parade shortly after 3pm from Persan-Beaumont station.

Families of other victims present

"No man, no person should die in this way, at this age," said Assa Traore, the young man's sister and figure in the fight waged for years to see "the reclassification of facts as voluntary homicide" . Among the demonstrators, relatives, supporters, "yellow vests", some unionists and environmental activists.

Our file on the Adama Traoré affair

“The climate struggle also denounces the system of oppression and domination. Ecology must be social, popular, united, "Elodie Nace, spokesperson for Alternatiba, who chartered a 70-seat bus from Paris, told AFP. Before the march, the families of Cédric Chouviat, Lamine Dieng, Ibrahima Bah, Babacar Gueye, Gaye Camara and Sabri spoke to denounce the deaths of their loved ones because of "police violence".

New expertise for 2021

This fourth edition also doubles as a festival with personalities and artists. For the Adama Committee, it is also a question of widening its base, in the wake of the rallies of 2 and 13 in Paris, which had drained thousands of demonstrators. The Traoré affair found a strong echo in France after the planetary wave of indignation caused by the death, in May in the United States, of George Floyd, a black man killed by a white police officer while he repeated that he couldn't "breathe anymore".

On the judicial level, the examining magistrates recently ordered new investigations and a new expertise to Belgian doctors, which is expected for January 2021. “Instead of doing all the time expertises from left to right, which they tell us the truth. I want to have justice before I die, ”said, moved, Oumou Traore, Adama's mother.

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