“Thanks to the decisive action of the police, it was a quieter night”. This is what French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said in his commentary on the fifth night of protests and urban violence following the police killing of young Nahel Merzouk in Nanterre, in the Parisian banlieue. Clashes broke out in Paris, in the Champs-Élysées area, in Marseille, in Lyon, in Nice and in Rennes. A Renault dealership in Brest is on fire. According to the French interior ministry, 719 people were arrested after last night’s unrest. The uprising also swept through Switzerland, where incidents and looting were reported in central Lausanne.
A speeding car crashed into the home of the mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Rose near Paris during the night, injuring his wife and one of his two young children. The mayor himself reported, while the Créteil prosecutor’s office confirmed to AFP that an investigation into attempted murder had been opened. Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun condemned this in a statement published on Twitter “an assassination attempt of indescribable cowardice” that took place at around 1:30 p.mwhile the mayor had stayed at City Hall for “three nights” because of his involvement in the emergency over the violence in the city.
I am dynamic, networked and, according to the authorities, often “very young”. This is the profile of some of the protesters who in recent days in France have been mourning “their anger” at the death of 17-year-old Nahel, killed by a police officer during a stop while marching through the country’s major cities. “The average age is 17,” Minister Darmanin said today, referring to those arrested. Some of them have already appeared before the courts of the Paris region. They’re high school students, college students, bartenders, young adults, and many of them with no criminal records.
Macron cancels visit to Germany However, tensions remain high in France, where Nahel’s funeral took place yesterday afternoon. Emotions in the mosque where thousands called for “Justice for Nahel” but there were no incidents. Meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron wants to “stay in France for the next few days” and has postponed the state visit to Germany planned for today. And in the meantime, send armored vehicles, helicopters and special forces of the GIGN to Marseille and Lyon, the two cities that suffered the most from the violence of the Friday night accidents and where an unprecedented event took place amount of reinforcements. Darmanin assured that he has “huge vehicles” in the two cities “without exhausting the rest”. So much so that the curfew demanded by many could not be imposed. If we count the trend in Paris and Ile-de-France that yesterday was a relatively quieter evening than the previous evening, “unprecedented” violence erupted in Lyon over the past 48 hours, local authorities have reiterated.
France in revolt, police in riot gear on the streets of Paris
In Marseille, where the battle in the city center and the Old Port has raged for hours and hundreds have been set on fire, the metro, trams and buses are already standing still. The municipality has asked operators of scooters and rental bikes to remove everything from the streets to prevent fires from starting. A reconnaissance plane will fly over the city throughout the night, showing ground forces the location of the incidents. In other cities, in the banlieues, but also in small towns, hoping to escape the wave of anger and violence, They try to stop Casseur and Black Bloc, but the task seems difficult because the commands of boys who go to loot shops, set fires or just destroy everything that comes within reach is difficult to predict.
Meanwhile, young Nahel’s body was buried in a white coffin at Mont Valérien Cemetery in front of a few hundred Nanterre family, friends and peers. The final goodbyes came from his grandmother and mother, who was raising him alone and who had lately watched him drop out of school like many of his friends in the suburbs and start earning his first money as a ‘rider’ by riding In his spare time he raps and rides motorcycles. And to his sporting passion for rugby.
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