Claire Hédon, here during an ATD Quart Monde roundtable in 2016, embodies the independent authority that reminds officers of police ethics. Her decision on the death of Nahel places the hierarchy of the Ministry of the Interior facing its responsibilities. Credits: PCF – French Communist Party / CC BY 3.0
In the case of the death of Nahel Merzouk, the Defender of Rights now places two responsibilities on separate tracks. On one side, the administrative discipline of the police. On the other, the possible criminal responsibility of the officer who fired. Published on June 19, 2026, its decision asks the Minister of the Interior to initiate a disciplinary procedure. It targets the two officers from the Nanterre stop, without deciding what judges will still have to examine.
A Decision Targeting the Police Chain
The decision 2026-135 of the Defender of Rights does not impose a sanction. It refers the matter to the hierarchical authority, in this case the Minister of the Interior. The request concerns each of the two officers present during the traffic stop that led to the death of Nahel Merzouk.
The independent administrative authority, led by Claire Hédon, seized the matter ex officio after the death of the 17-year-old. Nahel Merzouk was hit by a police shot during a refusal to comply in Nanterre. In its press release published on June 19, 2026, it says it examined the facts from the perspective of security deontology. This framework encompasses the professional obligations governing police action.
The first criticism concerns the pursuit of the vehicle. According to the Defender of Rights, the officers pursued Nahel Merzouk’s car after a refusal to comply. This followed traffic code violations. It considers that this decision contravened the instructions applicable at the time of the events. These rules limited engaging in pursuits to situations presenting a certain severity. According to the authority, the pursuit also exposed other road users to danger.
The decision also notes failings in communication between the two officers and with the information and command center. This point is central. The center is supposed to allow assessment of the intervention, coordinate reinforcements and, if necessary, consider a delayed interception.
The Shot Deemed Neither Necessary Nor Proportionate
The heart of the decision concerns the use of the weapon. According to the Defender of Rights, the car was restarting at reduced speed at the time of the shot. The officers were not in its trajectory. The authority concludes that there was no immediate danger to the officers.
It also finds that the shot was neither the last means available to stop the vehicle nor a response proportionate to the situation. It was fired at close range, toward the driver and with degraded visibility. In its view, it did not meet the requirements of absolute necessity and proportionality.
However, the decision does not uphold all the complaints that appeared in the public sphere. The investigation did not establish the blows mentioned by some witnesses. It does note, however, abrupt movements toward the driver’s head, an armed hand in the cabin, judged inappropriate and contrary to taught techniques.
It also mentions a threat of a shot to the head. The decision says this is established by concordant elements, but without attributing it with certainty to either of the two officers. The Defender of Rights sees this as an infringement on obligations of dignity and exemplariness. After the shot, it also records the use of force against a 14-year-old passenger who was cooperative.
Discipline and Criminal Justice, Two Distinct Procedures
The scope of the decision is administrative. It does not decide the criminal qualification of the facts and does not say whether the officer who fired will be tried for murder. It does reproach the police hierarchy, however, for not having initiated a disciplinary procedure. According to it, the IGPN administrative investigation had nevertheless revealed a deontological failing by the officer who fired.
This distinction is important in the Nahel case today. The Nahel police disciplinary procedure falls under the Ministry of the Interior: it can lead, or not, to an administrative sanction after review. The criminal file, meanwhile, falls to the judges. It concerns the judicial qualification of the fatal shot and the possible criminal responsibility of the official.
According to AFP, cited by Boursorama, Nahel’s mother’s lawyer denounced an absence of prior sanction. The lawyer of the officer who fired did not wish to comment. The lawyer of the second officer recalled that the Court of Cassation had validated the dismissal of charges concerning him in the criminal strand. On Friday at midday, the Ministry of the Interior had not reacted publicly.
The Court Of Cassation Reopened The Criminal Strand
The judicial strand took a turn on June 12, 2026. The Court of Cassation annulled the decision of the investigative chamber of the Versailles Court of Appeal. That chamber had requalified the facts as violence having caused death without intent to give it. The case must therefore be reexamined by the Versailles Court of Appeal.
According to AFP, in a dispatch of June 12, 2026, the high court judged the reasoning insufficient. It targeted the investigative chamber’s abandonment of the murder qualification. According to the reported terms of the ruling, the officer had used his weapon at close range. He had aimed at a vital area, aware of the lethal risk.
This decision does not amount to a conviction and does not yet set the future framework of the trial. It reopens the possibility of a referral under the murder qualification, but the Versailles Court of Appeal must rule again. Its decision may itself be appealed.
In this context, the Defender of Rights’ decision adds distinct institutional pressure. It does not replace the judges’ work. But it forces the ministry to answer a more immediate question. Why was no disciplinary procedure initiated after the administrative findings already established? And what will the hierarchical authority do now?
What The Ministry Must Now Take On
The Ministry of the Interior is not legally condemned by the Defender of Rights’ decision. It is seized. But this referral places the disciplinary response at the center of the case. It comes days before the third anniversary of the death of Nahel Merzouk, on June 27, 2023.
For readers seeking the verdict in the Nahel case, the answer therefore remains twofold. On the criminal level, there is not yet a definitive outcome after the Court of Cassation’s ruling. On the deontological level, the Defender of Rights has issued a detailed position. According to it, several professional obligations were disregarded. The absence of any disciplinary procedure itself constitutes a failing by the hierarchy.
What happens next will depend on two timetables. That of the Versailles Court of Appeal, which must reexamine the criminal qualification of the shot. And that of the Ministry of the Interior, now called to say whether it opens a disciplinary procedure against the officers targeted.
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