"Crying scandal and justice will not bring back Adama Traoré"

• Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old black man, died in 2016 during an arrest by the gendarmes.

• Six years later, the investigation to determine the causes of his death is still not complete.

• Virginie Gautier, the mother of one of the three gendarmes involved in the arrest of Adama Traoré, takes up the pen to denounce the media treatment of this affair and rectify what she considers to be lies.

On July 19, 2016, Adama Traoré died in the courtyard of the Persan gendarmerie (Val-d'Oise).

For six years, justice has been investigating to shed light on the causes of his death.

Are the gendarmes who pursued him to arrest him responsible?

Did the 24-year-old succumb because he suffered from a then undetected heart condition?

The medical expertise and counter-expertise carried out have still not yet enabled the investigating judge to formally settle the question.

Virginie Gautier, the mother of one of the three soldiers implicated, however, has the feeling that only the version of the family of the young man has been taken up in the media.

Although no gendarme has been indicted in this case, the death of Adama Traoré has been erected as a symbol of police violence, and would prove the existence of supposed state racism.

A version carried by the Adama Committee which, according to Virginie Gautier, sticks neither to the elements contained in the investigation file, nor to the personality of her son.

Her book, co-written with journalist Erwan Seznec, therefore sets out to restore what she believes to be the truth.

Published by Robert Laffont,

tells how she experienced the case and addresses the Adama Committee, headed by Adama's half-sister, Assa Traoré.

Viriginie Gautier confided in

on Thursday .

What prompted you to write this book?

I have collected thousands of articles on the subject.

And I told myself that there were so many inconsistencies that it was necessary to restore order in all that.

So it took me a year to write it.

Through this book, I wanted to show the truth, that is to say what really happened, and how the facts took place.

I have no hatred, I am calm, but things had to be said as they are.

For his part, Erwan Seznec has worked to show a bit of all the ankles that articulate the Adama committee.

They seized the opportunity and turned a news item into a business.

But there is no deal!

Precisely, what do you think of the accusations of the Adama Committee, which implicates your son and his two colleagues in the death of the young man?

“All the gendarmes, policemen are racists, they are all at the National Front…” After a while, that's enough.

Their accusations are not crazy, but we are not far from it.

For years, they had a magnificent boulevard, because there was no one opposite to contradict them, to tell them that it didn't happen as they claim.

Assa Traoré is a muse made by the media.

However, there is nothing, in the file, which can put my son and his two colleagues in charge.

As a soldier, he has a duty of reserve.

So someone had to stand up and say, “That's enough.

Please don't say anything”.

How, as a policeman's mother, did you experience the case?

It's unbearable to read that his son is an assassin, that we think he acts with premeditation, and even out of revenge.

How can we accept that his son, who does his job with sincerity, can be accused of premeditated murder?

It's insane!

That's why it's important, in the book, to explain who I am, where I come from, who my son is.

With the education I gave him, he cannot, could not do what he is accused of.

In this book, I do not speak for him, but for me.

What impact has this case had on your son's life?

He almost never stopped working, except for two and a half months.

He, his wife and his little girl had been placed under the protection of the gendarmerie, because all three were threatened with death.

Since then, he has resumed at another place.

But he saw things very badly.

He didn't want to read my book, even though he thought I had the right to write it.

Adama Traore's family is now asking for the dismissal of the investigating judge.

What do you think of the latest developments in the case?

It's still bullshit.

If a new investigating judge is appointed, the case will still be delayed.

But if we do not challenge her, and she requires a dismissal, we will say that justice is in the boots of the State.

It's exhausting, I feel like we're never going to get out of it.

I thought it would all be over last June.

That the last expert reports showed that he had died of asphyxiation, and not asphyxiation.

That's all the difference.

Adama Traore was sick, he had three illnesses.

We were in the middle of a heat wave, he had a heat stroke.

It's sad for him, for his family, his mother.

Losing someone close, I also know what it is.

Pain is there for everyone.

But crying foul and crying out for justice will certainly not bring Adama Traore back, it's not worth throwing everyone on the ground.

My son is not an assassin

, by Virginie Gautier and Erwan Seznec, Editions Robert Laffont, 242 pages.

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• Justice

• Adama Traore

• Investigation

• Interview

• Gendarmerie

• Police violence