ROUEN, France - A young man died on Friday after falling from a roof during an apparent burglary attempt while police in a town in northwestern France were busy dealing with protests, authorities said.

The man, around 20, crashed through the roof of a shopping mall while appearing to try and break into a supermarket, police said.

Prosecutors said the supermarket was not being targeted for plundering by groups taking part in riots which had been sparked by the police killing of a teenager on Tuesday near Paris.

The man climbed onto the mall’s roof around 5am on Friday, prosecutor Frederic Teillet said.

The man then fell, crashed through the roof and sustained serious injuries.

He died on Friday afternoon.

He had been on the roof with another young man, who told police later that they had planned to break into one of the shops in the mall.

During the attempted break-in, police in the town – Petit-Quevilly near Rouen in northwestern France – were dealing with dozens of rioters who attacked them with projectiles, set bins on fire and vandalised buses, a police source said. AFP