The 2016 death of Adama Traore, also known as the French George Floyd, has triggered a wave of radical protests in France weeks ago. His sister, Assa Traore, has since become a prominent figurehead of the movement against police violence and racism in the country. A renowned lawyer and essayist has recently exposed how the activist and her peers continue to make unhindered profits by insulting the state that had given shelter to them and their families.

Tensions are still runnng high around the case of Adama Traore – known as the French George Floyd, who died in police custody in 2016 – and the Adama Committee founded by his family in a bid to relentlessly protect his memory.

In a recent interview with Le Figaro, renowned French lawyer and essayist Gilles William Goldnadel argues that the Adama Committee has in fact grown into a symbol of impunity for those who insult France and benefit from the French state while constantly attacking it. 

Goldnadel s article begins with the latest developments of the Traore case, outlining how Adama had sexually abused his cellmate at the Osny prison, near Paris, on a regular basis, forcing him with a fork to perform fellatio on him several times a day. His victim reported the harassment in September 2016, two months after Adama s death. Margaux d Adhémar s article, also published in Le Figaro, reveals that the man received a sizable sum of 15 thousand euros in compensation, without any criminal proceedings and convictions, after the Committee on Compensation to Crime Victims (CIVI) had upheld his complaint. The amount, however, ended up being much higher (28 thousand euros) because after the victim was released from jail, he was badly beaten up by Adama s brother Yacouba. Apparently, the Traore brothers  violence has cost the French state deerly.

Adama s sister, Assa Traore, who frequently appears in the press, reacted to the charges of sexual violence in prison on Twitter. She branded the harassment case yet another media campaign designed to defame her brother and repeated the same old story that Adama was not a rapist but a victim, who died at the hands of the French gendarmes.

Assa Traore did not stop here and, as usual, she threatened to lodge a complaint against AFP journalist Guillaume Daudin, who was the first to report about the sexual violence committed in prison. Announcing her intentions in a recent tweet, she also disclosed the name of Adama s former cellmate, who had asked for anonymity, according to the French weekly Valeurs actuelles.

Le Figaro has also contacted the Traore family s lawyer, Yassine Bouzrou, to get an official comment on what happened, but he has yet to respond to the paper s questions.

In his article, Gilles William Goldnadel points out that Assa Traore is bent on protecting her brother s legacy and portraying him as an innocent victim, despite the fact that Adama has had countless brushes with the law. Moreover, Assa routinely employs the tactic of labelling the French judiciary as biased.

According to Goldnadel, the activist feels that she can do almost anything, because everything she did so far went unpunished: she can routinely accuse the French police of racism, organise mass protests with thousands of participants despite the official ban, or describe France as xenophobic. This is her portrayal of the country that had accepted and provided shelter to her father, a Malian refugee, in 1960, and has since been the home of her entire clan, the populous Traore family.

Goldnadel concludes his piece by pointing to crimes committed by immigrants and the growing number of problems caused by them, in a purportedly xenophobic France. He notes that the man who deliberately set fire to the Nantes cathedral was not a French citizen either, but a refugee from Rwanda, therefore the real victims are not the immigrants or the members of the Traore clan, but the French themselves, who have taken them in.