Despite a massive police operation and 1,311 arrests, riots raged in cities across France for the fourth night. 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 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.
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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.
Police officers face demonstrators in Concorde Square during a protest in Paris, France, Friday June 30, 2023. French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged parents to keep teenagers at home and proposed restrictions on social media to quell unrest erupting across France over the dead police shooting dead of a 17-year-old motorist. Lewis Joly/AP
As the number of arrests continued to mount, the government indicated that the violence was gradually easing thanks to tighter security measures. Since the unrest began on Tuesday night, the police have arrested a total of 2,400 people – more than half of them on the fourth night of violence.
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.
Hundreds of police officers and firefighters were injured, including 79 overnight, but authorities have not released details of the protesters’ injuries.
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.
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.
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.
Anger erupted in the Paris suburb after Nahel’s death on Tuesday and quickly spread across the country.
Charred cars are pictured in Nanterre, outside Paris, France, on Saturday July 1, 2023. French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged parents to keep teenagers at home and proposed restrictions on social media in a bid to stem unrest erupting across France over the deadly police shooting of a 17-year-old driver. Lewis Joly/AP
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.
Across France, there were fewer fires, cars on fire and police stations attacked than the night before, according to the Interior Ministry. Home Secretary Gerald Darmanin claimed the violence was “of much lesser intensity”.
Nanterre Mayor Patrick Jarry said France must “push for change” in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Despite repeated government appeals for calm and tougher policing, brazen violence erupted even in daylight. An Apple store was looted in the eastern city of Strasbourg on Friday. On the same day, windows of a fast-food shop were smashed in a shopping center in the Paris area.
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 have been very cooperative,” Darmanin said, adding that French authorities provided information to the platforms in hopes of working together to identify those inciting violence.
“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 riots come just over a year before Paris and other French cities will host Olympic athletes and millions of visitors to the Summer Olympics, whose organizers are closely monitoring the situation as preparations for the competition continue.
The police officer accused of killing Nahel has been provisionally charged with first degree 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.
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.
RAID police officers patrol during clashes in Lyon, central France, Friday, June 30, 2023. French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged parents to keep teenagers at home and proposed social media restrictions to stem the outbreak across France Police curb riots over police officer’s fatal shooting of 17-year-old driver. The wall reads in French: “Justice for Nahel” Laurent Cipriani / AP