More than 600 people have been arrested in France on the third night of unrest that has rocked cities across the country since a police officer fatally shot a 17-year-old driver this week, authorities said. know on Friday.
President Emmanuel Macron called a crisis meeting for the second day in a row on Friday as the government struggles to contain anger caused by the murder, which took place during a traffic stop in Nanterre, west of Paris, on Tuesday.
The officer who fired the gun has been formally investigated and taken into custody on a charge of attempted murder – a rare step in police-related criminal cases. However, that seems to have eased tensions, which have been flared by decades of feelings of abandonment and racism among those living in France’s poorer urban suburbs, Many of them are identified with teenagerswho has only been publicly named Nahel M.
According to French news reports, protesters burned cars, destroyed public buildings, looted shops and clashed with riot police in dozens of cities across France.
A school burned in the northern city of Lille, protesters burned trash cans and bus shelter destroyed in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, and police officers were targeting with fireworks on the outskirts of Lyon. Several shops were also vandalized and looted in Paris itself, which had previously experienced a bit of unrest following the shootings.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called the violence “intolerable and unforgivable.”
Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, has instructed the police to stop any acts of violence as quickly as possible. He also deployed more than 40,000 security forces across the country on Thursday night to prevent any unrest, more than four times the number of officers deployed the night before. In some cities, the government used helicopters to better monitor the chaotic unrest as small, highly mobile groups of young men clash with the police.
Mr. Darmanin said on Twitter on Friday that “following my directives to act resolutely,” police have made 667 arrests across France. Nearly 250 officers were injured, none of them seriously, according to the Interior Ministry.
Some of the worst violence is concentrated in the Paris area.
In Montreuil, an eastern suburb of the French capital, protesters smashed windows of businesses and looted. In Aubervilliers, a northern suburb, charred shards of metal were all that remained of dozens of buses after protesters stormed a warehouse and set it on fire.
Clément Beaune, the transport minister, condemned the violence, telling reporters at the scene that it “offers no solution.”
“It only adds injustice to injustice and anger adds anger,” Mr. Beaune said.
