After deadly police shot a 17-year-old, nighttime riots in France’s suburbs spread. Macron appeals to the parents of the protesters. The government is desperately looking for a way out.
It was “even worse” than previous nights. This is how a spokesman for the authorities summed up the dramatic events in the French newspaper “Le Figaro” on Friday: For the third consecutive night, violent clashes with angry youths took place in several neighborhoods in France. On Tuesday morning, a police officer in Nanterre, near Paris, shot and killed a young man, 17-year-old Nahel, during a traffic check. The officer is on remand and a preliminary investigation into premeditated murder has been launched. According to his lawyer, he had no intention of killing Nahel and asks the family for “forgiveness”.
However, suburban neighborhoods haven’t been able to rest since Tuesday. A funeral march on Thursday turned into a demonstration with hostile chants against the police, late in the afternoon hooded youths attacked the huge contingent of police and set fire to an office building. The clashes lasted until late into the night. Not only in Nanterre. Around the capital Paris, but also in other parts of the country, especially in the Lille region and in Marseille, youths attacked the police and public transport with Molotov cocktails and fireworks. Shops were looted in central Paris, Marseille and Lyon.
Government ‘examines all options’
The unrest is increasing pressure on President Emmanuel Macron. On Friday morning, he had to return home early from the EU summit in Brussels to chair a crisis meeting he had convened that afternoon.