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Thierry Henry turned a Champions League broadcast into something else on Tuesday night, speaking for several minutes about the racist shooting that left a young fighter dead in the Paris suburbs less than two weeks ago.
Appearing as a commentator on CBS, the former France striker set the night’s football aside to talk about the victims of the Oct. 23 attack in Trappes and neighboring La Verriere, RMC Sport reported. He singled out Pengo Bossio Wangi, the 26-year-old amateur MMA fighter who was killed, and said he died “simply because he was Black.”
Henry made it personal. “I am Black, I am French, I am a family man,” he said. “It could have been my brother, it could have been my daughter. So this must stop.”
He also rejected the idea that the gunman had simply lost his mind, pointing to what the suspect himself has said about whom he chose to shoot. And he spoke about a burden he said many French people of color carry: having to prove, again and again, that they belong. “We are French,” he said, “and that will never change.”
The attack began late on Friday, Oct. 23. A man driving through Trappes, a working-class town about 20 kilometres west of Paris, started firing from his car, then continued into La Verriere next door.
By the time it ended, Bossio Wangi was dead, and five others were wounded. The youngest was a 12-year-old girl, hit eight times, who survived and was reported stable.
The mayor of Trappes, Ali Rabeh, said the shooter appeared to want “a bloodbath.” Most of the victims came from immigrant backgrounds, and the mayor described the shooting as “objectively” a racist attack, probably an Islamophobic one. Two of the wounded were cleaners who were working at a school when the gunman stepped out of his car and opened fire. Both were of African origin.
Police arrested a 39-year-old man, named by French media as Kevin T., in nearby Coignieres. He was carrying a submachine gun and tear-gas grenades, a police source said. Investigators later found that he had rigged his flat with gas canisters wired to a timer.
The national anti-terrorism prosecutor took over the case, which is being handled as murder linked to a terrorist enterprise, with investigators examining whether victims were chosen for their real or supposed race, origin or religion.
According to reports, the suspect has acknowledged deliberately targeting people he saw as “Muslim,” “African” or “North African.” French media also reported at one stage that he disputes the racist nature of his acts.
President Emmanuel Macron visited Trappes the same day. “What happened here today was a racist terrorist attack,” he said.
He argued that the attack marked a break in French history, saying it was the first time a terrorist act had aimed to kill French citizens, including children, because of their skin color or presumed faith.
He then turned to the political climate. France, he said, must concede nothing to ideas that are gaining ground in the republic and could be used to excuse such violence.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, who visited both towns, called it a terrorist crime, and Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said the state was mobilizing all its security and judicial resources.
The shooting hit a France already unsettled. The weekend before, riots had broken out around mass protests over the cost of living, some of the worst street violence in years, and curfews had been imposed in several cities.
On Monday, Bossio Wangi’s family spoke publicly for the first time.
His father, Bolema Bossio, said they wanted only “justice and peace.” In a statement read by his daughter, Ambre Banguid, he said he was afraid for his Black children in a country marked by identity tensions. “He was a good person,” he said. “An angel was taken from us.”
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