2023-06-29 18:10:26
There have been renewed clashes between police and demonstrators in Paris. According to a reporter, police used tear gas on Thursday after riots broke out on the sidelines of a memorial march for a youth who was shot dead by police. It was also announced that buses and trams would no longer run in the Paris region on Thursday from 7 p.m.
The authorities were preparing for a third night of riots in a row. On the night of Friday, 40,000 police officers are said to be on duty across the country, around four times as many as on Wednesday. The riots were triggered by a police officer’s deadly shot at a youth of North African descent during a traffic stop in the Parisian working-class suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday. The public prosecutor’s office has initiated proceedings against the police officer on suspicion of manslaughter.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced that 150 people were arrested nationwide during serious riots on Thursday night. Dozens of police officers were injured in clashes with protesters, the minister said.
5,000 officers alone are to be deployed in the greater Paris area on Friday night. On the second night of the protest, numerous buildings in various cities were attacked or set on fire by the authorities. The most violent clashes broke out in Nanterre, where the killed youth named Nahel had lived. On Thursday night, an angry crowd set fire to cars and shot the police with firecrackers.
There were also clashes between police and demonstrators in Lille in the north and in Toulouse in the south-west. According to the police, there were also riots in Amiens, Dijon and in the Essonne department south of Paris.
President Emmanuel Macron described the violence as “unjustifiable”. According to the public prosecutor, Nahel did not stop his car despite the police request. As early as Wednesday night, after he was killed by a police officer, there was violence on the streets, which Macron called “inexcusable”. On Wednesday, Macron described the violent death of the 17-year-old as inexcusable. “We have a youth who was killed, it’s inexplicable and inexcusable,” he said in Marseille. “Nothing justifies the death of a young man.”
Police violence and riots have been a regular occurrence in France for a long time – especially in the poorer suburbs around the big cities, where people of different ethnic origins live. Human rights groups say there is systematic racism in law enforcement agencies in France.
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