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Roger Cohen, Paris Bureau Chief for the New York Times, covered the funeral for Nahel M. He writes: “There was consensus in the crowd: If Nahel M., a French citizen of Algerian and Moroccan descent, had been white rather than an Arab, he would not have been killed.” Read the full article.
In Washington Post op-ed “Police brutality isn’t just an American problem. It’s France’s, too”, Rokhaya Diallo remembers other victims of police violence, arguing that “institutional violence against minorities has been a hallmark of French life ever since the colonial era.”
Angelique Chrisafis spoke on the Guardian’s podcast about a summer of “grief and fury” in France. Listen here.
The last time a team of journalists convened at the American Library with the Overseas Press Club, it was to discuss Macron’s controversial pension reform and the social unrest that followed. Rewatch the conversation.
About the speakers:
In 2023, Roger Cohen and a team of New York Times reporters were awarded a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and a George Polk Award in Foreign Reporting for their coverage of the war in Ukraine. Cohen is the Paris bureau chief for the New York Times, where he began working in 1990. He has also worked for the Times as bureau chief in Berlin and in the Balkans, where he covered the Bosnian war and received the Eric and Amy Burger Award from the Overseas Press Club of America. In 2021, he received the Légion d’Honneur from the French Republic for his work over four decades.
Angelique Chrisafis is the Guardian’s Paris correspondent. She has reported from France since 2006. She reported in-depth on the terrorist attacks that struck France from 2015 and has also written about social issues and politics, including the rise of the far-right vote. She has reported across Europe including in Ireland, Spain, Greece and Cyprus.
Guillaume Debré is Deputy head of news for TF1 Television, overseeing coverage in the evening newscast at France’s biggest private network, and author of several books on U.S. politics and France. See his LinkedIn profile.
Vivienne Walt is a Paris correspondent for TIME Magazine and Fortune Magazine. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, BusinessWeek, and more. She is governor of the Overseas Press Club of America.
Mame-Fatou Niang, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies Carnegie Mellon University, author of “Universalisme” said on France 24: “Anybody who wants to critique, to highlight the weaknesses of the system, is now accused of being separatist. Because we’re in a country that doesn’t talk about race, about color, we’re in this weird rhetorical void.” Watch the interview.
Rokhaya Diallo is a French journalist, author, and filmmaker known for her activism in the fields of racial and sexual equality. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Al Jazeera, the Washington Post, Slate, Libération, and ELLE Magazine among others. She has published 10 acclaimed books, including a graphic novel, and has produced five activist documentaries.
