France’s Macron halts trip over riots, as family buries teenager
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PARIS – French police arrested more than 1,300 people during a fourth night of rioting ahead of the funeral of teenager Nahel M, whose shooting by police sparked the unrest that on Saturday prompted President Emmanuel Macron to postpone a trip to Germany.
Mr Macron’s government deployed 45,000 police officers and several armoured vehicles overnight to tackle the worst crisis of President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership since the “Yellow Vest” protests that brought France to a standstill in late 2018.
The French government postponed a state visit to Germany that was to begin on Sunday due to the ongoing unrest.
France’s Interior Ministry said that 1,311 people had been arrested, compared with 875 the previous night, in violence that it said on Twitter was “lower in intensity”.
Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop on Tuesday
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 Salsabil, a young woman of Arab descent, said she had come to express support for the family.
“I think it’s important we all stand together,” she told Reuters.
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.
Mr Macron has denied there is systemic racism inside French law enforcement agencies.
A young man, who declined to be named, said: “If you have the wrong skin colour, the police are much more dangerous to you.”
He added that he was a friend of Nahel’s.
Looters have ransacked dozens of shops and torched 2,000 vehicles since the start of the riots, which have spread to cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille.
More than 200 police officers have been injured, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, adding that the average age of those arrested was 17.
Friday night’s arrests included 80 people in Marseille, which is home to many people of North African descent.
People inspecting a damaged shop following a night of looting and rioting in Marseille, France, on July 1, 2023.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Social media images showed an explosion rocking the old port area of the southern city, but no casualties were reported.
Rioters in France’s second-largest city had looted a gun store and stole hunting rifles but no ammunition, police said.
Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan called on the government to send extra troops to tackle “pillaging and violence” in the city, where three police officers were slightly wounded early on Saturday.
In Lyon, France’s third-largest city, the police deployed armoured personnel carriers and a helicopter, while in Paris, police cleared protesters from the Place de la Concorde.
Burnt debris on a street after a fourth consecutive night of rioting in Lyon, south-eastern France, on July 1, 2023.
PHOTO: AFP
Lyon Mayor Gregory Doucet has also called for reinforcements.
Mr Darmanin had asked the local authorities to halt buses and trams, while Mr Macron urged parents to keep children at home.
The unrest has revived memories of three weeks of nationwide riots in 2005 that forced then President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency after the death of two young men electrocuted in a power substation as they hid from police.
“Quite simply, we’re not ruling out any hypothesis and we’ll see after tonight what the President chooses,” Mr Darmanin said on Friday when asked on television news whether the government would declare a state of emergency.
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 remains of a burned-out car in Montreuil, near Paris, on July 1, 2023.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Events, including two concerts at the Stade de France on the outskirts of Paris, were cancelled, while Tour de France organisers said they were ready to adapt to any situation when the cycle race enters the country on Monday from Spain.
Mr Macron left a European Union summit in Brussels on Friday early to attend a second Cabinet crisis meeting in two days and asked social media platforms to remove “the most sensitive” footage of rioting and to disclose identities of users fomenting violence.
Videos on social media showed urban landscapes ablaze. A tram was set alight in the eastern city of Lyon and 12 buses gutted in a depot in Aubervilliers in northern Paris.
Mr Darmanin met representatives from Meta, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok. Snapchat said it had zero tolerance for content that promoted violence.
As some Western countries warned citizens to be cautious, some tourists were worried, while others were supportive of the protests.
“Racism and problems with the police and minorities are an important topic going on and it’s important to address it,” American tourist Enzo Santo Domingo said in Paris.
Protesters blocking a street during clashes with riot police in Colombes, near Paris, on July 1, 2023.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
The policeman whom prosecutors say acknowledged firing a lethal shot at Nahel is in preventive custody under formal investigation for voluntary homicide,
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
