The far-right media commentator behind the initiative on GoFundMe.com said Wednesday that he had closed it in accordance with the officer’s family “because it has reached a comfortable level”.
Jean Messiha, an ultra-nationalist and former adviser to anti-immigration politicians Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, launched the initiative last week, sparking immediate controversy and calls for GoFundMe to suspend the collection.
The mother of Nahel M, the 17-year-old shot last week, has launched legal action against Egyptian-born Messiha.
“A complaint has been lodged today for fraud by a group, misuse of personal data and conspiracy in these crimes against Jean Messiha and everyone identified in the investigation as taking part in these offences,” her lawyer Yassine Bouzrou said in a statement.
Several left-wing lawmakers have also launched legal action to try to close the fund.
The amount raised for the policeman is around four times larger than the €400,000 pledged in a separate collection for the mother of Nahel, an Algerian-origin boy killed at the wheel of a rented Mercedes near their home outside Paris last Tuesday.
The incident, caught on camera, rekindled complaints about police brutality and racism towards minority groups, sparking five nights of rioting in deprived areas of the country that saw more than 3,500 people arrested.
The policeman, who was standing at the side of Nahel’s vehicle with a colleague when he opened fire at point-blank range, was detained immediately afterwards and has been charged with voluntary manslaughter.
The 38-year-old motorbike traffic officer, named as Florian M in the French media, appeared by video link at a court hearing on Thursday and was remanded in custody.
Another teenager in the car has claimed the officers who stopped Nahel hit him with the butts of their pistols, and a voice can be heard on the video shouting: “You are going to get a bullet in the head.”
Messiha said the fund was “a cry from French people to demand order, a cry of love for their security forces.”