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Where is Steve?

Thursday 25 July 2019, by Julien Salingue

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Steve Maia Caniço is a 24-year-old man who has been missing since 21 June following a violent police charge during the annual Fête de la Musique in Nantes. More than a month has passed, and the question remains: where is Steve? This was the question asked, in particular, by hundreds of people, friends, relatives and others, who were outraged by this umpteenth case of police violence, which once again resulted in a tragedy, at a rally held in Nantes on 20 July.

Where’s Steve? Where’s Steve? Meanwhile, Castaner dared to give decorations to officers and police officers to congratulate them for violently repressing the yellow jacket movement. In many other "democratic" countries, the Minister of the Interior would have already resigned. But it seems that in Macronia, human lives are not worth much: a Minister of Ecology who was wasting public money had to leave office, but the the minister responsible for so many people losing an eye can continue to take it easy despite the thousands of injured, dozens mutilated and dead in recent months.

Where’s Steve? Where’s Steve? The question is now being asked elsewhere than in the streets of Nantes, all over France. Like Adama Traoré, Zineb Redouane and many others, Steve Maia Caniço has become a symbol: a victim of an increasingly violent and unleashed police force, which feels - unfortunately rightly - authorized to commit all abuses, covered by its hierarchy, up to the highest level of the State.

Where is Steve? "We must not forget the context of violence in which our country has lived," Macron dared to answer when he was questioned, during a trip to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, about the case of the young man from Nantes. A doubly disgusting response, which attempts not only to make the victims look guilty, but also to justify the unjustifiable by invoking a "context" that would legitimize all past... and future abuses?

Where is Steve? We will never stop asking this question, alongside all those who refuse to see the intolerable become commonplace. In memory of Steve, of course, and all the other police victims. But also so that this crime does not go unpunished, and so that the Macron, Castaner and Co. know that we will not forget, and that we will not forgive.

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