Hundreds arrested as third night of riots rocks
France
More than 400 people were arrested as 40,000 police
officers and gendarmes were deployed across the country to control the
widespread anger following the police killing of a teenager on Tuesday.
Le Monde
with AFP
Published
today at 4:41 am (Paris), updated at 7:17 am
Protests
over the fatal police shooting of a teenager rocked France for a third straight
night on Thursday, June 29, with cars burned, buildings vandalised and hundreds
arrested in cities across the country.
The
nighttime unrest followed a march earlier on Thursday in memory of the
17-year-old, named Nahel, whose death has revived longstanding grievances about
policing and racial profiling in France's low-income and multiethnic suburbs.
An internal
security note indicated authorities were expecting a "theatre of urban
violence", with around 40,000 police and gendarmes – along with elite Raid
and GIGN units – deployed in several cities.
Read more
Article réservé à nos abonnés Hour by hour: From a deadly traffic stop to the
march in memory of Nahel M.
At least
three cities around Paris had issued curfews, while bans on public gatherings
were initiated and helicopters and drones mobilised in the neighbouring cities
of Lille and Tourcoing in the country's north.
Despite the
massive security deployment, violence and damage were reported in multiple
areas. As of around 3:00 am on Friday, at least 421 people had been arrested
across the country over the course of the night, according to the team of
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.
"There
aren't any very violent confrontations in direct contact with the police, but there
are a number of vandalised stores, looted or even burned businesses," a
senior national police officer said. Public buildings were also targeted, with
a police station in the Pyrenees city of Pau hit with a Molotov cocktail,
according to regional authorities.
'An Arab face'
France has
been rocked by successive nights of protests since Nahel was shot point-blank
on Tuesday during a traffic stop captured on video.
In her
first media interview since the shooting, Nahel's mother, Mounia, told France 5
television: "I don't blame the police, I blame one person: the one who
took the life of my son." She said the 38-year-old officer responsible,
who was detained and charged with voluntary manslaughter on Thursday, "saw
an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life".
The
memorial march for Nahel, led by Mounia, ended with riot police firing tear gas
as several cars were set alight in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre, where
the teenager lived and was killed. Cars, garbage cans, schools and government
offices were torched Wednesday night around Paris and in other cities, while
some 150 people were arrested nationwide.
As part of
measures to restore calm on Thursday, bus and tram services in and around Paris
were halted after 9:00 pm, the region's president said. But the measures and heightened
security appeared to do little to deter unrest on Thursday night.
In the city
center of Marseille, a library was vandalized, according to local officials,
and scuffles broke out nearby when police used tear gas to disperse a group of
100 to 150 people who allegedly tried to set up barricades. Multiple public
buildings were also targeted in Seine-Saint-Denis, in the Paris metro area,
according to a police source.
In
Nanterre, the epicentre of the unrest, tensions rose around midnight, with
fireworks set off in the Pablo Picasso district, where Nahel had lived,
according to an AFP journalist.
President
Emmanuel Macron has called for calm and said the protest violence was
"unjustifiable". The riots are a fresh challenge for Macron, who had
been looking to move past some of the biggest demonstrations in a generation
sparked by a controversial rise in the retirement age.
'You're going to get a bullet in the head'
Nahel was
killed as he pulled away from police who were trying to stop him for a traffic
infraction. A video, authenticated by AFP, showed two police officers standing
by the side of the stationary car, with one pointing a weapon at the driver.
A voice is
heard saying: "You are going to get a bullet in the head." The police
officer then appears to fire as the car abruptly drives off.
Clashes
first erupted as the video emerged, contradicting police accounts that the
teenager was driving directly at the officer. The officer's lawyer,
Laurent-Franck Lienard, told BFM-TV late Thursday that his client had
apologized as he was taken into custody. "The first words he pronounced
were to say sorry, and the last words he said were to say sorry to the
family," he said.
Earlier on
Thursday, Nanterre public prosecutor Pascal Prache had said: "The
prosecution considers that the legal conditions for the use of the weapon"
by the police officer who fired the shot "are not met".
'Ingredients
for an explosion'
The
government is desperate to avoid a repeat of 2005 urban riots, sparked by the
death of two boys of African origin in a police chase, during which 6,000
people were arrested. "There are all the ingredients for another explosion
potentially," one government adviser told AFP on condition of anonymity on
Wednesday.
The head of
the right-wing Republicans, Éric Ciotti, called for a state of emergency, which
would allow local authorities to create no-go areas, but a government source
told AFP that option was not currently on the table.
Concern
about the police using their weapons to stop drivers who refused to stop for
traffic checks has been growing. Last year, 13 people were killed after
refusing to stop for police traffic checks, with a law change in 2017 that gave
officers greater powers to use their weapons now under scrutiny.
"What
I see on this video is the execution by police of a 17-year-old kid, in France,
in 2023, in broad daylight," said Greens party leader Marine Tondelier.
Le Monde with AFP
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