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The number of arrests in France fell for the second straight day on Sunday. It’s a sign that the violence that erupted in the streets in response to the death of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk may be easing.
In the sixth night of unrest following last week’s deadly police shooting of the teenager, France’s interior ministry said Monday that 157 people had been arrested, compared with 773 on Saturday night and 1,311 on Friday night, for a total of 3,354 people arrested since then been June 27th.
Despite calls from some to declare a state of emergency, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said mass arrests had eased tensions without resorting to the measure.
About 45,000 police officers have been on active duty for the past three nights and Darmanin promised the same force would be back on the scene Monday night.
Riots “will be met with violence, arrests and court appearances,” he told BFMTV. “We will not allow anyone to wield a dagger against the Republic.”
President Emmanuel Macron met with ministers on Sunday to discuss a political way out of the crisis.
He also met with leaders of the Senate and National Assembly Monday as the scale of arrests and violent incidents subsided. Macron will meet more than 220 mayors from across France on Tuesday, said a person present at the government’s crisis meeting on Sunday.
Protests, riots and vandalism have rocked France since a police officer shot and killed Merzouk, a North African teenage boy from the Paris suburb of Nanterre, during a traffic stop last Tuesday. The reaction was sparked by video capturing the shooting that quickly went viral.
Darmanin said a third of those arrested were minors and he called for parental responsibility to end the violence.
“The average age of those we arrested is 17, sometimes it’s children as young as 12 or 13 who are pyromaniacs and have attacked authorities and elected officials,” Darmanin told BFMTV.
“We all need to be concerned about family and parental responsibilities because it’s not the job of the police, the mayor or the state to solve the problem when a 12-year-old kid sets a school on fire.”
In a conversation with the France Inter broadcaster on Monday, Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti called for a decisive response to those responsible for the riots of the past few days.
“A 17-year-old boy can’t put a bullet in the chest and die, of course that leads to a lot of emotions and with those emotions, anger. But looting a store has nothing to do with that feeling,” Dupond-Moretti said, adding that some used the murder as a “pretext” for violent behavior.
He also criticized a GoFundMe page set up by far-right commentator Jean Messiha, which has raised more than €1m to support the family of the police officer who shot Merzouk. “Anything that adds fuel to the fire is useless,” said Dupond-Moretti.
Three police officers were injured on Sunday night, almost 50 the night before.
A 24-year-old firefighter died overnight while fighting a fire in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. The incident has not yet been linked to the riots.
“We made no connection with the riots. “An investigation to clarify the circumstances is ongoing,” said the Paris fire department on Monday.
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Meanwhile, an attack on the home of Vincent Jeanbrun, a mayor of the southern Paris municipality of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, was condemned by politicians on Saturday. City buildings, city halls, schools and other public facilities were targeted by rioters as perceived symbols of the state.
In a call for calm, mayors invited people to vigils outside town halls across France on Monday.
“We are all deeply affected,” Jeanbrun said of his family on BFMTV. “Young people need to be told, ‘There is a republican order, law and authority.'” . . Those aren’t swear words. Because these things exist, we can then have freedom and equality.”