Youth and police clash in Marseille after family buries teen

PARIS – Rioting across France was less intense overnight, the interior ministry said on Sunday, as tens of thousands of police were deployed in cities across the country after the funeral of a teenager of North African descent, whose shooting by police sparked nationwide unrest.

President Emmanuel Macron

postponed a state visit to Germany

that was due to begin on Sunday to handle the worst crisis of his leadership since the “Yellow Vest” protests paralysed much of France in late 2018.

He was due to meet his ministers on Sunday evening to review the situation, the presidency said.

About

45,000 police officers were again on the streets

on Saturday night, with reinforcements going to the three largest cities, Paris, Lyon and Marseille.

The biggest flashpoint was in Marseille, where police fired tear gas and fought street battles with youth around the city centre late into the night.

In Paris, police cleared protesters from the Place de la Concorde and increased security at the city’s landmark Champs Elysees avenue after a call on social media to gather there.

TV images showed shop facades covered with boards to prevent potential damage.

The interior ministry said 719 people were arrested on Saturday night, fewer than the 1,311 the previous night and 875 on Thursday night.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said it was too early to say that the unrest had been quashed. “There was evidently less damage, but we will remain mobilised in the coming days. We are very focused, nobody is claiming victory,” Mr Nunez said.

Local authorities all over the country announced bans on demonstrations and ordered public transport to stop running in the evening.

The unrest, a blow to France’s global image just a year from holding the Olympic Games, will add political pressure on Mr Macron. 

He had already faced months of anger and sometimes violent demonstrations across the country after pushing through a pension overhaul. 

The postponing of the state visit to Germany is the second time this year he has had to cancel a high-level event because of the domestic situation in France. In March, he cancelled King Charles’ planned state visit.

Nahel M, a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan parents, was

shot by a police officer during a traffic stop

on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

For the funeral, several hundred people lined up to enter Nanterre’s grand mosque, which was guarded by volunteers in yellow vests, while a few dozen bystanders watched from across the street.

Some of the mourners, their arms crossed, said “God is Greatest” in Arabic, as they spanned the boulevard in prayer.

Ms Marie, 60, said she had lived in Nanterre for 50 years and there had always been problems with the police.

“This absolutely needs to stop. The government is completely disconnected from our reality,” she said.

The shooting of the teenager, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism.

“If you have the wrong skin colour, the police are much more dangerous to you,” said a young man, who declined to be named, adding that he was a friend of Nahel’s.

Nahel was known to police for previously failing to comply with traffic stop orders and was illegally driving a rental car, the Nanterre prosecutor said on Thursday.

Mr Macron has denied there is systemic racism in French law enforcement agencies.

Shops ransacked

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Saturday that around 10 malls had been attacked and looted in the wave of unrest.

He said more than 200 supermarkets had been attacked, around 15 of which had been burned down, with tobacconists, banks, fashion and sports shops, and fast-food outlets also being targeted.

Rioters have torched 2,000 vehicles since the start of the unrest. More than 200 police officers have been injured, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, adding that the average age of those arrested was 17.

Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti said 30 per cent of detainees were under 18.

In the greater Paris region, the home of the conservative mayor of L’Hay-les-Roses was ram-raided, and his wife and one of his children were injured as they escaped.

The local prosecutor said an investigation into attempted murder had been opened. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne visited the area on Sunday to renew the call for an end to the “unacceptable” violence.

A decree issued on Saturday gave Paris police the right to deploy drones in parts of the suburbs.

In Marseille, where 80 people were arrested on Friday, police said they had detained 14 more as they tried to disperse crowds.

“It’s very scary. We can hear a helicopter and are just not going out because it’s very worrying, especially on the Old Port,” said Mrs Tatiana Corbellini, 79, a pensioner who lives in the city centre.

Mayor Benoit Payan called on the government to send extra troops to tackle “pillaging and violence” in Marseille, where three police officers were slightly wounded on Saturday.

In Lyon, France’s third-largest city, police deployed armoured personnel carriers and a helicopter, while in Paris, they cleared protesters from the Place de la Concorde.

There was also unrest in the Mediterranean city of Nice and Strasbourg in the east.

The unrest has revived memories of nationwide riots in 2005 that forced then President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency, after the deaths of two young men electrocuted in a power substation as they hid from police.

Players from the national football team issued a rare statement calling for calm.

“Violence must stop to leave way for mourning, dialogue and reconstruction,” they said on star Kylian Mbappe’s Instagram account.

The South Winners supporters group, an influential fan group for Olympique de Marseille, called on the city’s youth to “be wise and show restraint”.

“By acting in this way, you are dirtying Nahel’s memory and are also dividing our city.”

Events including two concerts at the Stade de France on the outskirts of Paris were cancelled, while LVMH-owned fashion house Celine cancelled its 2024 menswear show on Sunday, creative director Hedi Slimane said on Instagram.

Tour de France organisers said they were ready to adapt to any situation when the cycle race enters the country on Monday from Spain.

With the government urging social media companies to remove inflammatory material, Mr Darmanin met officials from Meta, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok. Snapchat said it had zero tolerance for content that promoted violence.

The policeman who prosecutors say acknowledged firing a lethal shot at Nahel is in preventive custody while under formal investigation for voluntary homicide, equivalent to being charged under Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions.

His lawyer, Mr Laurent-Franck Lienard, said his client had aimed at the driver’s leg but was bumped when the car took off, causing him to shoot towards his chest.

“Obviously, (the officer) didn’t want to kill the driver,” Mr Lienard said on BFM TV. REUTERS