Clashes erupt after march in tribute to teenager shot dead in Paris suburb

PARIS – Youths clashed with riot police on the sidelines of a march held on Thursday in tribute to a 17-year-old shot dead by police earlier this week in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, according to Reuters correspondents at the scene.

Riot police fired tear gas at youths who had gathered for the march, held in memory of the teenager identified by his first name of Nahel.

Nahel was shot dead during a traffic stop, and public anger over the incident led to riots across France this week.

Separately, the head OF the Ile-de-France region Valerie Pecresse said on Twitter that there will be no bus or tramway transport after 1900 GMT on Thursday in the Paris region.

Earlier, the interior ministry said 40,000 police officers would be deployed across France on Thursday evening.

This is nearly four times the numbers that were mobilised on Wednesday evening.

“The state must be firm in its response. Tonight, 40,000 policemen will be mobilised, including 5,000 in the Paris region versus 9,000 yesterday,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters.

Both Mr Darmanin and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne ruled out declaring a state of emergency for now.

Around 180 people were arrested and public buildings attacked in angry protests over the death of 17-year-old Nahel M., who was of North African descent.

The local prosecutor said investigative magistrates had placed the police officer involved under formal investigation for voluntary homicide. 

Under France’s legal system, being placed under formal investigation is akin to being charged in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions. 

“On the basis of the evidence gathered, the public prosecutor considers that the legal conditions for using the weapon have not been met,” Mr Pascal Prache, the prosecutor, told a news conference.

Nahel was shot in the chest at point-blank range in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday, in an incident that has

reignited debate in France about police tactics long criticised by rights groups.

Cars and bins were torched in parts of Paris and nationwide overnight, and protesters launched fireworks at riot police, who fired flashball projectiles to try to disperse the angry crowds. A tramway was also set alight in a Paris suburb.

“We are sick of being treated like this. This is for Nahel; we are Nahel,” said two young men calling themselves “avengers” as they wheeled rubbish bins from a nearby estate to add to a burning barricade in the capital.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that the shooting was unforgivable.

Branding the overnight clashes “unjustifiable”, Mr Macron told a crisis meeting of ministers on Thursday that the coming hours and an afternoon march in memory of Nahel in Nanterre should be marked by “contemplation and respect”.

“The last few hours have been marked by scenes of violence (not only) against police stations, but also schools and town halls... against institutions and the republic,” he said.

The violence is a deeply troubling development for Mr Macron, who has been looking to move past a half-year of sometimes violent

protests that erupted over his controversial pension reform.

The teenager was killed as he drove away from police who had tried to pull him over for traffic infractions.

A video circulating on social media and authenticated by AFP shows two policemen 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 towards the officer.

By Wednesday night, anger had spread to Toulouse, Dijon and Lyon, as well as several other towns in the Paris region, where around 2,000 riot police officers had been deployed.

Interior Minister Darmanin wrote on Twitter as he announced the arrests that the violence was “intolerable”.

In the region around the scene of Nahel’s killing, masked demonstrators dressed in black launched fireworks and firecrackers at security forces.

A thick column of smoke billowed above the area where AFP journalists saw more than a dozen cars and garbage cans set ablaze and barriers blocking off roads.

Graffiti sprayed on the walls of one building called for “justice for Nahel” and said “police kill”.

In the working-class 18th and 19th districts of north-eastern Paris, police fired flashballs to disperse protesters burning rubbish, but instead of leaving, the crowd responded by throwing bottles.

In the southern city of Toulouse, several cars were torched and responding police and firefighters pelted with projectiles, a police source said, while the authorities reported similar scenes in Dijon and Lyon.

At France’s second-largest prison complex, Fresnes, protesters attacked security at the entrance with fireworks, a police source told AFP.

The town hall of Mons-en-Baroeul outside the northern city of Lille was set on fire when some fifty hooded individuals stormed the building, the mayor told AFP.

France is haunted by the prospect of a repeat of 2005 riots sparked by the death of two boys of African origin during a police chase. Those protests resulted in around 6,000 people arrested.

“There are all the ingredients for another explosion potentially,” one government adviser said on condition of anonymity.

The head of the right-wing Republicans, Mr Eric Ciotti, called for a state of emergency, which allows the local authorities to create no-go areas, to be declared in all the zones where the riots erupted. A similar measure had been ordered in 2005.

But there has been growing concern over tactics of police, particularly against young men from non-white minorities.

In 2022, 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.

But far-right leader Marine Le Pen said the officer was entitled to the “presumption of innocence”.

Mr Darmanin said he had also referred to the judiciary a tweet – now deleted – by a minor police union called France Police and seen as close to the extreme right, which celebrated the teen’s death and blamed his parents. REUTERS, AFP