French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday postponed a long-planned state visit to Germany to deal with worsening unrest in France – a clear sign of the severity of violent protests in the country.
The killing of a 17-year-old of North African descent by a police officer threw chaos in France on Tuesday, sparking violent demonstrations in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where the teenager was shot dead. The violence has spread to other major cities.
According to the latest estimates by the French Ministry of the Interior, up to 1,300 rioters were arrested in the night from Friday to Saturday.
The Élysée confirmed that Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke on the phone on Saturday and agreed to postpone the high-level visit. “Given the internal situation, the President has indicated that he would like to stay in France for the next few days,” the statement said.
“The two presidents therefore agreed to postpone the visit to Germany to a later date,” it said.
For the time being, no new date for the visit seems to have been announced.
The state visit, scheduled for July 2-4, was intended to strengthen Franco-German ties and get leaders to discuss burning issues from energy policy to China. It would also have been the first time a French president had paid a state visit to Germany since Jacques Chirac visited Berlin in 2000.
Escalating clashes between rioters and the police had already forced Macron to hasten his departure from Friday’s EU Council meeting in Brussels.