French boy held in custody sparks debate over racism and childhood
A 13-year-old boy from Paris has become the latest symbol of France’s toxic identity politics after being subjected to a racist and fat-phobic online campaign that stripped him of his childhood, human rights advocates and legal experts warned on Saturday.
Hamza F., who jokingly calls himself “La Douane” for charging passers-by €2 to use the towpath along the Canal Saint-Martin, was held in police custody for 48 hours this week over a disputed phone theft. The case has been seized upon by far-right commentators and media outlets, who have circulated videos of the boy’s petty misdemeanours as evidence of a national security crisis. “The mechanism of de-childisation at work here denies him the protective gaze society owes every child,” said Fatima Benomar, a sociologist at the University of Paris-Nanterre who studies youth and racism. “Hamza is being punished for existing in public space while Arab and Muslim.”
The boy’s family say he was not involved in the theft and that the phone was recovered within hours. Yet the narrative of the “dangerous Arab teenager” has taken hold. On Thursday evening, Mediapart published an analysis headlined “Hamza la Douane: when racism denies childhood,” documenting how social media users have shared edited clips to inflate the threat he poses. “They show a 13-year-old playing with a water pistol and call it a national emergency,” Benomar said. “It is grotesque.”
Legal experts note that French law requires prosecutors to consider the age and circumstances of a suspect. “A child cannot be treated as an adult offender simply because of how they look or how others choose to frame their behaviour,” said Clémence Bécourt, a lawyer with the Paris bar association. She added that Hamza’s detention—twice the legal maximum for a minor in such cases—may constitute a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The controversy comes amid a broader surge in far-right rhetoric ahead of next year’s presidential election. Polling this week showed Marine Le Pen’s National Rally leading in several regions, with immigration and “law and order” dominating campaign trails. “This is not an isolated incident,” said historian Benjamin Stora. “It is part of a deliberate strategy to criminalise young men of North African descent and to present them as a threat to the Republic.”
Hamza’s case has also exposed tensions within the justice system. Public prosecutors in Paris declined to comment on the specifics, but a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice said that “every case is assessed on its individual merits, regardless of the defendant’s background.” Meanwhile, the boy’s family have filed a complaint against unknown persons for incitement to racial hatred.
As the online pile-on continues, advocates are calling for a public reckoning. “We need to ask why a child’s prank becomes a national scandal, while actual violence against children in working-class neighbourhoods is ignored,” said Yasser Louati, a spokesperson for the Collective Against Islamophobia in France. “Hamza’s story is a mirror held up to French society—and it shows something deeply ugly.”
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