Assa Traoré says her family name means “warrior”. She is determined to live up to it.
Seven years ago this month, her younger brother Adama Traoré died in police custody on his 24th birthday. That his death has not been forgotten – like those of other young black and north African men whose paths have crossed the French police – is entirely down to Assa.
Adama’s death in 2016 sparked protests and rioting, and revived the national debate over tensions between the police and young people in the rundown housing estates that are home to generations of families originally from France’s former African colonies.
It also renewed allegations of systemic racism and violence in the country’s forces of law and order.
Assa has accused the three gendarmes involved in Adama’s arrest of killing him because of the colour of his skin and was sued, unsuccessfully, for defamation. The officers, who have admitted they put their full weight on Adama while trying to detain him, are still under investigation.
“They chose the wrong family,” she says, speaking in her apartment on the outskirts of Paris. “The more they threaten us, pick on us, take legal action against us, the more determined we become.”
For the last seven years Assa has fought a campaign under the banner “truth and justice for Adama”, warning the authorities that without either, they “will have no peace”. In doing so, she has become one of France’s most prominent campaigners for racial justice.
To her critics, however, her activism is vexatious. Last month, after the fatal police shooting of Nahel M, a 17-year-old from Nanterre, sparked rioting, violence and vandalism, she encouraged Nahel’s family to organise a public demonstration.
The authorities then banned an annual march in commemoration of Adama – but Assa went ahead with it anyway.
The “illegal” protest led to the violent arrest of another Traoré brother, Youssouf, 29. Police were filmed singling him out from the crowd. Afterwards, they claimed he had hit an officer; Youssouf emerged from hospital with a swollen face and a half-closed eye. For Assa, it was a terrifying case of deja vu.
“He’s fine, but he’s obviously traumatised,” Assa, 38, says. “It’s all part of daily life for black and north African men in the housing estates.
“The harassment … is constant. Everyone is afraid of the police and gendarmes. As soon as they enter a neighbourhood, the word goes out to get inside.”
She adds: “They had Youssouf on the ground. It’s a potent symbol: you rise and we will put you down. This is the message being sent to our youngsters. We don’t offer them the best: the best schools; the best facilities; the best opportunities.
“Yes, they will put all my brothers in prison because they have dared to rise and ask for truth and justice for Adama.”
Adama’s death threw a spotlight not just on accusations of police violence and racism but also on France’s failure to fully integrate young people with black and north African roots, often treated as not entirely French despite being born and raised in the country.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has rejected the term “police violence”, saying the violence is specific to individual officers rather than the entire force.
On the night Adama died, he had made the fatal mistake of running off when gendarmes tried to arrest his brother Bagui. He was caught, held face down and handcuffed.
Like George Floyd, the black American murdered by a white police officer in 2020, Traoré complained he was having difficulty breathing after bearing the weight of three gendarmes on his prone body. By the time he arrived at the police station he was unconscious, and he was declared dead a few hours later.
“The first thing I did when I heard he was dead was to call the journalists,” says Assa. “It was the school holidays. I thought everyone will have forgotten by September. I was determined his death wouldn’t become another minor news story. And I have fought every day since.”
A first postmortem suggested Adama had had a congenital heart defect that had been worsened by drink and drugs. A second found no trace of drink or drugs and suggested the cause of death was asphyxiation.
The following day, the gendarmerie called the family to collect Adama’s body, Assa says.
“They said: ‘We know you are of the Muslim faith and in Islam you bury the body within three days so we have contacted Air France and the Charles de Gaulle airport and the body of your brother will leave [for Mali] tomorrow.’
“I told them they were talking about a child who was born and grew up in France. It was for us to decide where he would be buried.”
Since then, Adama’s death has been mired in conflicting and disputed reports and the exact cause never definitively established.
“No French expert will touch the case because they know we will contest it,” Assa says. “The experts are charlatans in league with the legal system.”
Yassine Bouzrou, the Traoré family lawyer, insists there is enough evidence to hold a trial but has accused the judges overseeing the investigation of “not respecting the law”.
France’s independent defender of rights has said the gendarmes should at least face disciplinary action.
In the last seven years, Assa, who gave up her job as a special educational needs teacher to become a full-time activist, has become a skilled communicator and instantly recognisable across France.
Outside the flat where she lives with her three children, 15, 11 and nine years old, and a tomcat named Simba, locals stop to greet her, calling her “ma belle” (“my lovely”).
Assa is one of 17 children from her father’s relationships with four women, and she is routinely challenged over some of her brothers’ run-ins with the law – questions she has described as insulting. It is all part of an organised campaign, she says, to criminalise and destroy her family because they will not keep quiet.
“My brother [Adama] had done petty criminal things, but nothing of any consequence,” she says.
“He was not a monster. The extreme right tries to justify the deaths of these men because of their crimes, but the death penalty has been abolished in France.
“This is how the authorities work: they dehumanise the victim, criminalise him and incriminate the family.”
Assa’s campaign has also brought international attention. In 2020, Time magazine named her one of its Guardians of the Year and the face of France’s movement for racial justice.
“I’m not fighting for Assa Traoré, I’m fighting for Adama Traoré and all the Adama Traorés whose lives matter,” she says.
“I want his death, his name, to change things. It’s not about me; it’s about pulling open the curtains to reveal what is happening in France.
“We cannot let our brothers die like this. France has to recognise that there is this racism and violence. It is not a weakness to admit this; it will save lives. If it continues in denial, we will get nowhere.”