A burned-out bus is seen at the Aubervilliers bus terminal in northern Paris, three days after a 17-year-old boy was shot in the chest by police at point-blank range in Nanterre, Paris, France, June 30, 2023. Follow the police.
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France asked all local authorities to stop public transport early Friday night in a desperate attempt to restore order. It came after rioters sparked the police shooting of a teenager torched buildings and cars for a third night in a row.
Violence erupted in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse and Lille, as well as parts of Paris, including the working-class suburb of Nanterre, where Nahel M., 17, of Algerian and Moroccan descent, There was shot. Tuesday.
His death, which was captured on video at a traffic stop, sparked long-running grievances in impoverished, racially mixed urban communities over incidents of police violence and allegations of systemic racism in law enforcement.
More than 200 police officers were injured and 875 were arrested as rioters clashed with police in towns and cities across France, setting buildings, buses and other vehicles on fire and looting shops, authorities said.
Prime Minister Elizabeth Bohn told reporters the government would consider “all options” to restore order. In a tweet, she called the violence “intolerable and inexcusable.”
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin asked local authorities to stop all bus and tram traffic across the country from 9pm in an effort to calm tensions.
French President Emmanuel Macron has already said in televised comments during a cabinet crisis meeting that he will ask social media platforms to remove the “most sensitive” videos of the riots from their feeds and disclose to the authorities users who incite violence identity of.
Macron has so far ruled out declaring a state of emergency, leaving an EU summit in Brussels early for his second cabinet crisis meeting in two days.
He also said some unspecified public events would be canceled in areas of unrest, without giving details.
In the southern city of Marseille, France’s second largest city, authorities banned public demonstrations on Friday and encouraged restaurants to close their outdoor dining areas early.They say all public transport will stop at 7pm
For Mohammad Jakoubi, who grew up watching Nahle, his anger was fueled by a sense of injustice in the suburbs following police violence against minority communities, many of them from former French colonies.
“Enough is enough, we are French too. We are against violence, we are not scum,” he said.
Human rights groups have accused French law enforcement of systemic racism, an allegation Macron has denied. In 2020, his administration pledged “zero tolerance” for racism within law enforcement.
Damanin quadrupled the national police deployment late Thursday to 40,000 officers, with 249 injured, the ministry said.
Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said several employees of electricity distribution company Enedis were also injured by stones thrown during the clashes.
The Interior Ministry said 79 police posts were attacked overnight, as well as 119 public buildings, including 34 town halls and 28 schools.
Nanterre Flashpoint
Videos overnight on social media showed cityscapes burning across the country. A tram in the eastern city of Lyon was set on fire, while 12 buses were destroyed at a station in Aubervilliers, north of Paris.
In Nanterre, on the outskirts of the capital, protesters torched cars, blocked streets and hurled projectiles at police after an earlier peaceful vigil to mourn the dead teenagers.
Several people were arrested after a Nike shoe store was broken into at the Chatelet Les Halles shopping center in central Paris and shop windows were smashed on the adjacent Rue de Rivoli shopping street, Paris police said.
Several casino supermarkets across the country were looted, a source told Reuters.
In Geneva, the UN human rights office stressed the importance of peaceful assemblies and urged French authorities to ensure that police use of force is lawful, proportionate and non-discriminatory.
“Now is the time for the state to seriously address the deep-seated problems of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement,” said spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani.
The officer, who prosecutors say admitted to fatally shooting the teen, was formally investigated on Thursday for manslaughter, the equivalent of a charge in an Anglo-Saxon jurisdiction. He is currently in preventive detention.
His attorney, Laurent-Franck Lienard, said his client aimed for the driver’s leg but was hit, causing him to shoot himself in the chest.
“Obviously (the officer) didn’t want to kill the driver,” Linard said on BFM television.
Some Western governments have warned citizens to be cautious.
The US embassy tweeted that Americans “should avoid areas with large gatherings and high police activity”, while British authorities warned Britons of possible traffic disruptions and local curfews.
The unrest recalled three weeks of nationwide unrest in 2005, when then-President Jacques Chirac was forced to declare a state of emergency.
The violence erupted in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, where two young men were electrocuted while evading police at a substation.