PARIS (AP) – Riots raged in cities across France for the fourth night despite a major police operation and 1,311 arrests. Cars and buildings were torched and shops looted as family and friends prepared on Saturday to bury the 17-year-old, whose killing by police sparked the riots.
The French Interior Ministry announced the new number of arrests across the country, where 45,000 police officers have been deployed in a so far unsuccessful attempt to stem the violence.
Despite an appeal by French President Emmanuel Macron to parents to keep their children at home, clashes continued in the street between young protesters and police. About 2,500 fires were set and shops looted, according to authorities.
The funeral service for the teenager, identified only as Nahel, who was killed by police on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, began on Saturday. Family and friends viewed the open coffin before it was taken to a mosque for a ceremony and later buried in the city cemetery.
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As the number of arrests continued to mount, the government indicated that the violence was gradually easing thanks to tighter security measures.
Still, damage was widespread, from Paris to Marseille and Lyon, and even far away, in the French overseas territories, where a 54-year-old died after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana.
Firefighters extinguish the blaze in Nanterre, outside Paris, France, July 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)
France’s national football team – including international star Kylian Mbappe, an idol for many young people in the underprivileged neighborhoods where the anger originates – called for an end to the violence.
“Many of us come from working class neighborhoods, we too share this sense of pain and sadness” over the killing of 17-year-old Nahel, the players said in a statement. “Violence solves nothing… There are other peaceful and constructive ways to express yourself.”
They said it was time for “mourning, dialogue and rebuilding” instead.
The killing of Nahel sparked long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects who struggle with poverty, unemployment and racial discrimination. The riots that followed are the worst France has seen in years and put renewed pressure on Macron, who blamed social media for fueling the violence.
Riot police officers patrol as smoke billows from burned vehicles on the third night of protests sparked by the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old driver by police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, France, June 30, 2023. (AP/Aurelien Morissard)
Anger erupted in the Paris suburb after Nahel’s death on Tuesday and quickly spread across the country.
Firefighters in Nanterre were putting out fires started by protesters early on Saturday that left burnt car wrecks strewn on the streets. In the neighboring suburb of Colombes, demonstrators knocked over garbage cans and used them as makeshift barricades.
Looters broke into a gun shop in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille in the evening and fled with guns, police said. Officials in Marseille arrested nearly 90 people as groups of protesters set fire to cars and smashed shop windows to take the contents away.
Vandalism also occurred in buildings and shops in the eastern city of Lyon, where a third of around 30 arrests were made for theft, police said. Authorities reported fires in the streets after more than 1,000 people attended an unauthorized protest on Friday night.
A protester walks on the third night of protests sparked by the deadly police shooting at a 17-year-old driver in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, France, June 30, 2023. (AP/Aurelien Morissard)
While the number of nighttime arrests was the highest ever, there were fewer fires, burnt cars and attacks on police stations across France than the night before, according to the Interior Ministry. Home Secretary Gerald Darmanin claimed the violence was “of much lesser intensity”.
Hundreds of police officers and firefighters were injured, including 79 overnight, but authorities have not released details of the protesters’ injuries.
Nanterre Mayor Patrick Jarry said France must “push for change” in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Despite repeated government appeals for calm and stricter policing, there was also brazen daytime violence on Friday. In the eastern city of Strasbourg, an Apple store was looted where police used tear gas, and the windows of a fast-food joint were smashed in a Paris-area shopping center where officers fought off people trying to break into a shuttered shop , as the authorities called it.
Riot police officers stand near a burning car in the La Meinau district of Strasbourg, eastern France, June 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
Faced with the escalating crisis, which hundreds of arrests and massive police operations failed to quell, Macron refrained from declaring a state of emergency, an option used in 2005 under similar circumstances.
Instead, his administration escalated the law enforcement response with mass deployments of police officers, including some recalled from furlough.
Darmanin on Friday ordered a nationwide overnight shutdown of all public buses and trams targeted by the rioters. He also said he warns against using social networks as channels for incitement to violence.
“They were very cooperative,” Darmanin said, adding that French authorities provided information to the platforms in hopes of working together to identify violent criminals.
“We will prosecute any person who uses these social networks to commit acts of violence,” he said.
Macron also focused on social media platforms, which shared dramatic images of vandalism and burning cars and buildings. He singled out Snapchat and TikTok, saying they are used to organize riots and serve as channels for copycat violence.
The violence comes just over a year before Paris and other French cities will host 10,500 Olympians and millions of visitors to the Summer Olympics. Organizers said they were closely monitoring the situation as preparations for Paris 2024 continue.
A preliminary charge of first-degree murder has been brought against the police officer accused of Nahel’s murder. Preliminary charges mean coroners have strong suspicions of wrongdoing but still need to investigate further before bringing a case to court. Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache said his initial inquiries led him to conclude that the officer’s use of his weapon was not legally justified.
Demonstrators block a street with garbage cans in Colombes, outside Paris, France, July 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)
Nahel’s mother, identified as Mounia M., told France 5 television that she was angry with the officer but not with the police in general. “He saw a little Arab-looking child, he wanted to take his own life,” she said.
“A cop can’t take his gun and shoot our children, take our children’s lives,” she said. The family has roots in Algeria.
For decades, race was a taboo subject in France, formally committed to a doctrine of color-blind universalism. After the killing of Nahel, French anti-racism activists have again lodged complaints about the behavior of the police.
Thirteen people who flouted traffic stops were fatally shot by French police last year. That year, three other people, including Nahel, died in similar circumstances. The deaths have sparked calls for more accountability in France, which has also seen racial justice protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.
This week’s protests recalled the three-week riots in 2005 that followed the deaths of 15-year-old Bouna Traoré and 17-year-old Zyed Benna, who were electrocuted while standing at a substation in Clichy-sous-Bois hid from the police.