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Riots broke out across France for the fourth time after police fatally shot a 17-year-old driver of North African descent in his hometown of Nanterre on Saturday as his family prepared to bury him.
The Home Office said 1,311 arrests were made overnight, compared to 875 on Thursday night, and indicated the intensity of the protests was waning.
As a sign of how seriously the government is taking the demonstrations, President Emmanuel Macron has canceled a state visit to Germany that begins on Sunday because he “wants to stay in France for the coming days,” the Elysée Palace said on Saturday.
Rioters caused extensive damage: cars and buildings were set on fire, there was widespread looting in Marseille and around Paris, and dozens of attacks on police stations.
“We can assume that the events were less intense overnight,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told news channel BFMTV early on Saturday morning. 79 police officers were injured on Friday evening and 249 on Thursday.
He said the use of armored vehicles, helicopters and 45,000 police officers, as well as the high number of arrests, caused a “psychological shock” that kept people from rioting.
According to the government, the average age of those arrested on Friday was 17.
The killing of Nahel, whose last name has not been released, on Tuesday sparked a wave of anger in the Paris suburb where he lived that has spread to cities across France.
According to official studies, it has exacerbated tensions between the police and young people in low-income, minority and immigrant areas, who face racial profiling by the police and discrimination in housing and work opportunities.
The unrest poses a major challenge for Macron, who called for calm while calling the shooting “inexplicable and inexcusable.” He had sought to put behind months of protests against his unpopular pension reforms by restating legislative priorities and more active diplomatic engagement.
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His government has been criticized by far-right leader Marine Le Pen for being too lenient on rioters and too soft on crime, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left politician, said the violence perpetrated by the police must end must.
Prosecutors have charged one of the two officers allegedly involved in the shooting with first degree murder and placed him in pre-trial detention, a rare occurrence in such cases.
Public buses and trams were shut down overnight to avoid being attacked and set on fire, while curfews were imposed in some cities.
French soccer captain Kylian Mbappe and the national team tried to persuade the protesters to end the violence.
“Many of us come from working-class neighborhoods, we too share this feeling of pain and sadness,” they wrote on Mbappe’s Twitter account. However, they criticized the “self-destruction”, adding: “It is your property that you destroy, your neighborhoods, your cities.”
The government has yet to manage to declare a state of emergency, which would give regional prefects broader powers to combat violence. Instead, local curfews were imposed and concerts and public events were canceled.
In 2005, a two-month state of emergency was declared to quell similar riots that began when two teenagers were killed while fleeing police.