After a knife-wielding African migrant, 26-year-old Muhamed Gueye, was shot dead by French police last week in the French city of Ajaccio, which is on the island of Corsica, Senegalese media has labeled the shooting racist. At the same time, Gueye’s parents, who still live in the country of Senegal, have filed a complaint against France for “aggravated voluntary homicide.”

The video of Gueye being shot shows him wielding a knife as police approach on Saturday, Dec. 20, at 12:30 p.m. According to reports, police deployed a taser against the suspect, which was ineffective. When he continued to rush them with a knife, he was shot dead by police.

Video of the shooting quickly went viral.

🇫🇷🔴The knife-wielding suspect killed by French police in Ajaccio has been identified as Muhamed Gueye.

His parents, who live in Africa's Senegal, have now filed a complaint for aggravated intentional homicide against the French police who killed the suspect. https://t.co/8CRUS5eXYJ

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) December 21, 2025

Prosecutors have already ruled out a terrorism motive in the case and have said the police shooting was justified, but some Senegalese media outlets see it differently.

Writing in the African news outlet Press Afrik, Dr. Zang Pénélope wrote:

“This Saturday, in Corsica, the police killed a black man, a Senegalese-Belgian named Mouhamed Gueye. He was strolling down a well-known avenue in Ajaccio, looking erratic. They say he had a bladed weapon, a knife. The images indeed show this man, his gait shaky. I can understand how scary he could have been. But I can’t understand why we had to shoot him, like a dog, in broad daylight. And again, even a dog would have had better treatment.

This man is the laughing stock of social networks, where far-right, racist and odious testimonies pop the champagne at the announcement of the death of a man. Moreover, many deny the humanity of the latter, rather pity the knife, the real victim of the affair.

Since the last European elections, France has fallen into uninhibited racism, and not a week goes by without politicians and their followers sending words of rare violence in the face of so-called different people. The famous immigration which is seen as the cause of everything. France’s debt has exploded, national education is going through a crisis, we are struggling to vote on a complete budget, we are worried about retirement, entrepreneurs are jumping ship, just like young people; but all this, of course, is the fault of immigration. The immigrant has become the scapegoat of a restricted, frustrated, impoverished French society, and this cannot continue like this.”

According to the Ajaccio prosecutor, the individual was driving on a scooter from the Ring Road towards the city center. Once he was approached by police, he brandished a knife.

“The police tried to control him with, a priori, one and two taser shots, without success,” specifies Nicolas Septe, the prosecutor, according to Europe3.

“When the person concerned continues his progress, he would brandish a knife in the direction of one of the police officers, threatening him. The second police officer present in this patrol of three police officers will protect his colleague and use his service weapon three times, hitting the person concerned in the chest. He died of injuries caused by these shots,” said the Ajaccio prosecutor.

Witnesses also backed the police story. Anthony Bezard, the owner of a nearby bakery, said the police “couldn’t stop him, they tased him, they tased him, but couldn’t neutralize him.” Bezard was so close by that he says he was accidentally tasered by the officers by mistake.

Another witness, Félix Bonardi, said: “The police were trying to arrest someone very tall and very strong. I saw a knife with a very long blade.”

Another witness, Krimau El-Majouti, also attacked the knifeman, saying: “I was afraid he would touch a mother or a child. I took a table to hit him on the head and finally hit him on the feet…There were other people next to me who threw chairs at him.  He tripped and fell to the ground.”

It has been revealed that Muhamed Gueye had a student visa and Belgian identity papers, and in January 2025, he was already arrested for possession of a knife and committed to a psychiatric institution. Apparently, he was homeless in Ajaccio.

His parents have filed a complaint for aggravated homicide. He is the oldest of eight children who obtained a degree in medicine in 2020, according to Corse Matin.

The reason? The parents say the complaint is “above all, to find out what happened.”