Europe 1 with AFP 10:53 p.m., September 09, 2022

The policeman who shot the motorist who had refused to comply in Nice on Wednesday was indicted for willful violence and then placed under judicial supervision.

He also received a ban on carrying weapons, said the public prosecutor of Nice, Xavier Bonhomme.

The 23-year-old policeman who shot a motorist who refused to comply on Wednesday in Nice has been indicted for willful violence and placed under judicial supervision, the prosecution said.

The police officer was indicted for "willful violence with a weapon causing death without intention to give it", and was banned from carrying a weapon, said the public prosecutor of Nice, Xavier Bonhomme.

In police custody since Wednesday evening, the police officer, assistant in a road safety brigade, was heard in the context of an open judicial investigation "to determine in a contradictory manner and under the authority of a judge of instruction, the exact circumstances of the shooting", had specified the prosecutor of Nice.

For its part, the IGPN, the police force, had been charged with an investigation for intentional homicide.

An open judicial inquiry

The facts took place on Wednesday around 4.30 p.m. when a 24-year-old man traveling without a license in a stolen vehicle was spotted on the Nice expressway "zigzagging dangerously", according to the explanations of the Departmental Directorate of public security (DDSP).

Refusing to obey the police beckoning him to stop, the man had accelerated and left the fast lane, before finding himself blocked, turning around and colliding with the police vehicle which was following him.

"After several warnings", the police officer fired "once at the driver of the stolen vehicle", a version "corroborated by witnesses present at the scene", Xavier Bonhomme said on Friday, announcing the opening judicial information.

A scenario rejected by the relatives of the victim, for whom "it is obvious that we have (case) to a homicide, there is no discussion on it", declared Thursday one of their lawyers, Me Sefen Guez Guez.

A "disproportionate" reaction according to a lawyer

The policeman's reaction "is clearly disproportionate", insisted this lawyer from the Nice bar, co-appointed with Me Ouadie Elhamamouchi to defend the victim's family: "whatever the circumstances or the reality of his behavior previously, he does not There was no danger of death that justifies killing this man in cold blood".

According to videos posted Thursday on social networks, the driver, blocked by a police car in front, first reversed before trying to disengage and restart.

But he is then again blocked by the police car in front.

It was at this moment that the policeman, gun in hand and standing near the vehicle, fired through the driver's side window.