According to the Interior Ministry, a total of 1,311 people were arrested in France overnight in the fourth night of violence following the death of Nahel, who was killed by a police officer on Tuesday.
• Also read: Nahel killed by a police officer: five things you should know about urban violence in France
• Also read: France: Light armored and elite units and 45,000 troops mobilized to try to contain unrest
• Also read: In the heart of Paris, traders worried after a night of unrest
According to the ministry, 752 people were arrested in the police zone, 406 in Paris and the inner suburbs and 153 in the gendarmerie zone.
The shooting of a police motorcyclist and the death of 17-year-old Nahel M. in Nanterre on Tuesday, whose funeral is scheduled for Saturday, was picked up by amateur video that contradicted the original police story and continued to cause a stir in districts of the Landes in the night from Friday to Saturday.
A very important piece of equipment, no less than 45,000 police officers, made it possible to contain the violence on this fourth night of riots, but the casualties remain very high. According to the Interior Ministry, “79 police officers and gendarmes were injured”, about 1,350 vehicles were burned, 234 buildings were burned down or left to decay and about 2,560 fires were recorded on public roads.
Marseille, France’s second largest city in the south, endured a restless night, prompting Home Secretary Gerard Darmanin to send reinforcements there. Police had already reported 88 arrests since the beginning of the evening around 02:00 (00:00 GMT), groups of young people often masked and “very mobile”.
AFP
Traveling north-west of Paris, Mr Darmanin reported “less intense” violence in the middle of the night, with 471 arrests already national and hot spots, particularly in Marseille and Lyon, the big cities in the south. – East.
As of Saturday morning, the number of arrests was around 1,000, higher than the previous nights when police had arrested almost 900 people.
Young people in hoods
Clashes erupted late into the night in Lyon or Grenoble (centre-east), with gangs of young people, often masked, wandering around or on motor scooters, firing dozens of mortar shells at police, who responded with tear gas canisters.
The Paris region was not spared either, as three cities near the capital decided, as did other cities in the province, to introduce a curfew.
In Nanterre, a city in the Paris region where Nahel M. was killed by a police officer during a traffic stop on Tuesday, residents prepared for Saturday’s funeral of this 17-year-old youth whose death sparked violence and vandalism for all Countries.
“Saturday, July 1, will be a day of reflection for Nahel’s family,” family attorneys wrote, urging the media not to attend the ceremony to “allow the bereaved the privacy and respect they need.” “
AFP
Even before these funerals, the interior minister had announced “more specialized units” such as the RAID and the GIGN, elite police and gendarmerie forces.
Gendarmerie light armored vehicles were also dispatched to ease tensions compared to the night before, when 492 buildings were attacked, 2,000 vehicles were burned and dozens of shops were looted.
“The time of violence must end to make way for the time of mourning, dialogue and reconstruction,” demanded the players of the France national football team in a press release from captain Kylian Mbappé.
“Spirit of Responsibility”
The government had decided to cancel all “major events” such as Mylène Farmer’s concerts on Friday and Saturday at the Stade de France, and required buses and trams to be halted after 9pm (7pm) across the country. MEDIUM GREENWICH ERA).
Emmanuel Macron called for family responsibility on Friday and stressed that “a third of those arrested last night were young people, some very young”.
AFP
Mr Macron accused social networks of fueling violence and said he expects the same “spirit of responsibility” from these platforms, citing in particular Snapchat and TikTok, where “violent gatherings” are organized and which also incite “a form of mimicking violence”. . , according to him.
The death of Nahel M., whose family is originally from Algeria, has revived the issue of police violence in France, 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 with aimed fire by one of the two police officers, who refused to immobilize 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.