Lightly armored vehicles, elite units and 45,000 men mobilized: The French government took “extraordinary” measures on Friday to stop the cycle of violence, looting and destruction that has rocked many of the country’s cities since the death of a young man on Tuesday a Paris suburb, killed by a police officer while trying to escape a traffic stop.

• Also read: Here’s what you need to know about the riots in France

• Also read: Violence during the white march for young driver killed by police in France

Even before the funeral of 17-year-old Nahel, scheduled for Saturday, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced on television that he would mobilize large resources to try to stem the violence that is erupting in France for the fourth consecutive year and her Crescendo increases. Spread to new cities.

“More specialized units” such as the RAID and the GIGN – elite police and gendarmerie forces – and 45,000 police officers and gendarmes should be deployed, he told TF1.

AFP

Light armored vehicles from the Gendarmerie were also dispatched to try to defuse tensions from the night before, when 492 buildings were attacked, 2,000 vehicles burned and dozens of shops looted despite the arrest of nearly 900 people.

During the night from Friday to Saturday, just after 00:30 (Friday 22:30 GMT), Mr Darmanin reported on Twitter that “already 270 arrests, including more than 80 in Marseille”, where “reinforcements”, as reported by the town hall required, “arrive”.

AFP

“Big events” across the country have been canceled by the government amid the unrest, including concerts by Mylène Farmer on Friday and Saturday at the Stade de France. Buses and trams were to be shut down nationwide from 21:00 (19:00 GMT).

“The time of violence must end to make way for the time of mourning, dialogue and reconstruction,” demanded the players of the French national football team in a press release by captain Kylian Mbappé.

AFP

Nahel M. was killed at close range by a police officer in Nanterre near Paris on Tuesday as he was driving a high-performance car without a license and attempted to evade control.

“Everybody hates the police”

Violence and looting erupted again on Friday, particularly in Strasbourg (east), where an Apple store was looted, and in Marseille (south), where a demonstration erupted in the evening.

“Everyone hates the police”: Suddenly, dozens and dozens of young people gather, sing and march down the street leading to Marseille’s famous Old Port district, approaching police cars parked on an adjacent street.

AFP

Quickly throw some projectiles at the transporters. The police responded with tear gas. A police helicopter flies over the city.

At least three cities near Paris and several provincial cities have decided to introduce curfews.

AFP

President Emmanuel Macron, who cut short his stay in Brussels on Friday morning, called on families to be responsible when the youth of the violent criminals struck a nerve.

“A third of those arrested last night are young people, some very young people,” he said on Friday, accusing the social networks of fueling this violence by spreading slogans and videos.

AFP

Mr Macron said he expects a “spirit of responsibility” from these platforms, citing Snapchat and TikTok in particular, where “violent rallies” are organized and which he says also inspire “a form of mimicking violence”.

The death of Nahel M., whose family is from Algeria, has revived the issue of police violence in a country where 13 people died in a police stop last year.

UN on racism

During Friday’s regular UN press conference in Geneva, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights urged France “to seriously address the deep-seated problems of racism and racial discrimination among the forces of order.” An accusation that the French Foreign Ministry deemed “completely unfounded” and responded immediately.

The violence also worries France’s neighbors. Britain and other European countries, as well as the United States, warned their nationals to avoid riot zones.

The issue of the state of emergency is being raised by parts of the political world at home and under scrutiny abroad, especially as France hosts the Rugby World Cup in the autumn and the Paris Olympics in the summer of 2024.

The state of emergency, which allows administrative authorities to take exceptional measures such as a traffic ban, was declared in November 2005 after ten days of riots in the French suburbs, sparked by the deaths of two teenagers trapped in an electrical transformer they were in , electrocuted hid to escape the police.

This time, Nahel M. was shot in the chest at point-blank range by one of the two police officers who tried to stop his vehicle. The latter, a 38-year-old motorcyclist, was charged with first-degree manslaughter on Thursday and taken into custody. Video shows him leaning on the side of the car and aiming at the driver before firing at point-blank range when the vehicle suddenly restarts.

Secret footage shows the white Berkeley law dean appearing to tell the class that he illegally discriminates against potential hires to promote diversity – and boasts he will deny it if he’s fired

• The dean of the Berkeley legal department, Erwin Chemerinsky, appears to claim that he secretly discriminates when hiring employees to promote diversity
• The California State Constitution has prohibited affirmative action in “public employment, public education, or public procurement” since 1996.
• Chemerinsky said, “The law school strictly adheres to Proposition 209 in all hiring and admissions decisions.”

By Aneeta Bhole

Published: 2:01 PM, July 1, 2023 | Updated: 2:08 PM, July 1, 2023

Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of Law at Berkeley, was filmed suggesting to a class that he was illegally discriminating against potential hires in order to promote racial diversity.

Chemerinsky is seen explaining to students how “unspoken affirmative action” can be achieved when a college or university “doesn’t tell anyone about it and doesn’t make public statements about it.”

“I’ll give you an example from our law school, but if I’m ever deposed, I’ll deny I told you that,” he continued.

“When we hire teachers, we recognize that diversity is important to us and we say diversity is important, that’s a good way to say it.”

The undated video, tweeted by a University of California academic by critical opponent of race theory Christopher Rufo, surfaced in the days after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in college admissions.

Affirmative action has been illegal in California — where Berkeley is based — since 1996, and the tablet screen visible on Chemerinsky’s desk suggests the clip is an actual clip.

Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of Law at Berkeley, was filmed telling a class that he unlawfully discriminates against potential hires to promote diversity

Chemerinsky said he was “very cautious when we hold a faculty selection committee meeting if someone says, ‘We should really favor this candidate because that person would bring diversity’ — don’t say that!”

“You can think about it, you can vote on it, but our discussions are not privileged, so never articulate that you do.”

The law school dean said it was “easier for hiring teachers” but less so for “student admissions” for “statistical reasons”.

Proposition 209 is a California election proposal that, after its approval in November 1996, changed the state constitution.

Chemerinsky said he was “sad” that someone in his class took a video and “cut it out this way,” adding, “The law school strictly adheres to Proposition 209 in all hiring and admissions decisions.”

It prohibits state government institutions from taking race, gender or ethnicity into account, particularly in the areas of public employment, public procurement and public education.

In 2020, the University of California supported a ballot initiative to repeal Prop 209, but state voters rejected the change 57 percent to 43 percent, meaning affirmative action remains illegal there.

Chemerinsky told Fox News he was “sad” that someone in his class took a video and “cut it out that way.”

“The law school strictly adheres to Proposition 209 in all hiring and admissions decisions,” he said.

has reached out to Chemerinsky and Berkeley for comment.

There was excitement on Twitter when a video surfaced calling Chemerinsky “shockingly wrong” for admitting that he would break the law because of his political views.

“Not only does he tell you he’s breaking the law, he’s also announcing that if he ever speaks out on the matter, he will commit perjury,” one user said.

Another said: “This is such a crucial point.” “Schools and businesses should strive for diversity in perspective and thought, not just race and sexual preference.”

McCormick Law Professor and Princeton Academician Robert P. George said the video showed a “lack of diversity and perspectives” on the faculty.

“What Dean Chemerinsky reveals most glaringly here is the lack of diversity — diversity of viewpoints — in his faculty,” he wrote.

“He can tell them what he says to them when they break the law *only* because he can count on them to share his ideological commitments.”

Stringer/Portal

Local residents gather at the scene of the accident on Saturday, when a truck carrying a shipping container went off the road and rammed several vehicles at an open market in Londiani, western Kenya.

CNN –

At least 48 people were killed in a road accident in Londiani, western Kenya, on Friday night when a truck carrying a shipping container ran off the road and rammed several vehicles, police and witnesses said.

Footage of the aftermath of the accident, broadcast by local stations, showed twisted wreckage of cars and motorcycles, and damaged minibuses and trucks.

Regional Police Commander Tom Odera said the death toll was 48 as of Friday night.

“I saw an oncoming trailer coming at high speed. I dodged and escaped when I hit him head-on. The person standing behind me thought I was going to buy something. He overtook me and got hit in the process. The trailer went off the road and crashed into other vehicles,” said Peter Otieno, a driver.

“I saw about 20 bodies with my own eyes. There were more bodies under the vehicle.”

According to the Kenya Red Cross, the truck hit more than six vehicles and ran over pedestrians. More than 20 injured people were taken to local hospitals, according to the Red Cross.

Andrew Kasuku/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

A view of the scene after a truck crashed into a market in the Londiani area of ​​Kericho.

“The country mourns with the families who lost loved ones in a horrific road accident in Londiani,” Kenyan President William Ruto wrote in a tweet.

“It is worrying that some of the fatalities are young people with bright futures and business people going about their daily business.”

The accident is one of the deadliest on Kenya’s roads in recent years. Last year, 34 people died in central Kenya when their bus went off a bridge and into a river valley.

It is a close friend whom Francis appointed Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on Saturday, July 1st. The Pope has elected Msgr. Vìctor Manuel Fernàndez, an Argentine theologian and Archbishop of La Plata since 2018, to head this strategic service of the Curia, heir to the Holy Inquisition.

The 60-year-old, who will be responsible as the “guardian of dogma” of the Catholic Church from mid-September, has a long career as a theologian behind him. Born in Argentina, where he had developed close ties with Pope Francis, he founded a training center for lay people in the mid-1990s before heading the prestigious Argentine Pontifical Catholic University for nine years. Among the hundreds of articles he has authored, there is a common thread: the dialogue between theology and contemporary culture and the importance given to social issues.

charter do #DaddyFrancisco to Dom Víctor Manuel Fernández, who will direct the Dicastério para a Doutrina da Féhttps://t.co/6lzPXrzRrw

— Vatican News (@vaticannews_pt) July 1, 2023

The Pope’s pen

Since the beginning of Francis’ pontificate, the one who was also president of the Argentine Society of Theology, has multiplied the trips to and from Rome to work with Francis, of whose relatives he is. “When the Pope has an important text to write, he locks himself in with Monsignor Fernández for a week and they work tirelessly until something happens,” explains one of the Pope’s friends. The Argentine theologian was also one of the main protagonists of Amoris Laetitia, the family admonition published in 2016, which had sparked heated debates in the Catholic Church, particularly over the situation of remarried divorcees. He also spent the days leading up to his appointment at the end of June at the Residence of Saint Martha, where Francis lives, to work with the Pope.

It is therefore a profile of rupture that Pope Francis has chosen to succeed the Jesuit Luis Ladaria, who has been at the forefront of the doctrine of the faith since 2017 and has reached the age limit. In Rome, some still remember the interview the Argentine theologian gave to the Corriere della Sera in May 2015. At the time, the Archbishop of Argentina told the Italian daily that the Roman Curia was “not essential”. “The pope might as well live outside of Rome, have a dicastery in Rome and one in Bogotá, and maybe connect via video conference with liturgical experts based in Germany,” he explained at the time.

The end of the fight against doctrinal errors?

Pope Francis has set a clear course for the new prefect: “To watch over the teaching” of the Church, “but not like enemies who point the finger and condemn”. This conception of this dicastery, whose task is precisely to condemn theological deviations, involves the risk of a lot of ink being spilled, but is fully adopted by the Pope. “The dicastery that you will preside over has seen other times when immoral methods were used,” Francis wrote in a letter in Spanish to his Argentine friend released by the Vatican. These were times when possible doctrinal errors were investigated instead of promoting theological knowledge. What I expect from you is undoubtedly something else entirely. »

“It is good that your task expresses that the Church encourages the charism of theologians and their efforts in theological research, on condition that they are not satisfied with a clerical theology, with a cold and hard logic that wants to rule everything,” writes Francis, before insisting on his attachment to “an idea capable of convincingly portraying a God who loves, who forgives and who saves”.

fight against sexual violence

At the head of his dicastery, the new prefect will also be responsible for combating the most serious sexual violence, since his dicastery is responsible for handling cases of pedophilia and sexual abuse of protected adults. Over the years the ‘Disciplinary Department’ has continued to grow and now has 25 ‘officials’, up from 18 five years ago. The “teaching department”, which guarantees compliance with good teaching, consists of 9 people.

It is more than likely that this appointment will provoke much comment in Rome, since the profile of the new prefect is so close to that of Francis and, above all, embodies a new conception of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. In the 2015 Corriere della Sera interview, Bishop Fernàndez developed the spirit of the Roman Curia reform initiated by his compatriot: “The Pope is going slowly because he wants to be sure that the changes will have a profound impact,” he said said then. Slowness is necessary for their effectiveness. He knows some are hoping that the next pope will backfire. If you walk slowly, it’s harder to come back. » Support for deep reform. And finally.