2023-06-30 01:26:00
On Wednesday some 150 people were detained and dozens were injured. Photo: AFP.
The death of the teenager shot by a policeman on Tuesday in France generated new mobilizations this Thursday, several of them with incidents and riots towards the end, arrests, an apology from the officer who shot and the renewed deployment operation of thousands of gendarmes who , even so, they could not avoid an afternoon-night of riots.
“The whole world must see this… When we march for Nahel, we march for all those who have not had a camera”said at the beginning of the march in Nanterre, where the case of “easy trigger” occurred, the mother of the young man who died.
In the city, more than 6,000 people -according to the Le Monde site- participated in the call “White march” under the slogan “Justice for Nahel” and were dispersed with tear gas after arriving at Nelson Mandela Square.
The response of some groups, in this case dressed in black, was to stone the agents and set fire to garbage cans, cars and trees.
Violence grows in France after a case of easy trigger
VER VIDEO
The Nanterre Prosecutor’s Office, a French town bordering Paris, determined that the policeman who killed the 17-year-old delivery boy should remain in preventive detention.
Prosecutor Pascal Prache concluded this Thursday that the legal conditions for the use of the weapon were not met, when speaking to the press.
The first agent’s lawyer, Laurent-Franck Liénard, wrote on the Facebook network that His client ended up in “jail for firing a shot that he believed was necessary, with the weapon that the State had given him to guarantee his safety and that of his fellow citizens,” but later revealed that his client had apologized to the young man’s family. .
A 17-year-old delivery man, Nahel was shot after resisting a police control. The agent explained to the authorities that he wanted to “avoid a new escape from the vehicle” and assured that if he drew the weapon and pointed it directly at him, it was to prevent it from starting again, although the young man did so anyway.
The riots broke out after Nahel, a 17-year-old boy, was shot by a police officer. Photo: AFP.
It was at that moment that the shot was fired, which according to the prosecutor went through Nahel’s arm and chest, which finally ended up crashing, as can be seen in a video that quickly went viral on the internet.
“The first words he said were to apologize, and the last words were again to apologize to the family,” Liénard said on BFM-TV.
If on Tuesday night there were only scenes of violence in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, and last night the protests spread to the cities of Lyon (center), Toulouse (southwest) and Lille (northeast), among othersthe picture this Thursday was similar, with burning roofs, broken glass in businesses and banks, and car fires.
Only last night, some 180 people were arrested and dozens were injured, reported the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who expressed his support for the police after denouncing “a night of unbearable violence against symbols” of the country, such as schools, police stations and government buildings. , according to the Europa Press news agency.
“I support the police officers, gendarmes and firefighters who bravely show their faces. Shame on those who did not call for calm,” said Darmanin, who announced the deployment this Thursday of 40,000 police officers and gendarmes, including 5,000 in Paris, to prevent a third night of protests, a goal he was unable to meet.
Violence against police stations, schools, town halls, against the Republic, is unjustifiable.
Thank you to the police, gendarmes, firefighters and elected officials mobilized.
Meditation, Justice and calm must guide the next few hours.
—Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) June 29, 2023
In Paris, the Police officially reported after 11:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. in Argentina) about 40 arrests, and at the Fives town hall, in Lille, about thirty people attacked the community headquarters with pyrotechnic mortars.
In the same Lille, small groups of young people, some with their faces covered, set fire to garbage cans and cars around 9:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. in Argentina) and damaged shop windows. Police reported about 20 arrests.
Le Monde also reports violent clashes in the Mas-du-Taureau district, in Vaulx-en-Velin, on the outskirts of Lyon, and images of cars on fire were also seen in Sevran.
Some 400 people, mostly young people, including minors, gathered in front of the Marseille prefecture and then went out to walk the streets with some isolated clashes with the police, and in Toulouse the storm helped to stop the clashes that were taking place. on the André-Abbal square in Mirail. The city’s Old Port was evacuated amid tear gas.
Photo: AFP
The protests even spread to Brussels, Belgium, where youth groups called through social media came out to protest Nahel’s death. In the midst of a strong security deployment, the Police had made a dozen arrests and public transport was interrupted in the Boulevard Anspach area, one of the main streets in the city center.
The French Government questioned the actions of the agent, also captured by a witness who filmed the scene, whose content is already in the possession of the Prosecutor’s Office and who, in their opinion, prove that an excess could have been committed.
President Emmanuel Macron condemned in a Twitter message the “violence against police stations, schools and government headquarters”, which he considered “unjustifiable” and thanked the “police, gendarmes, firefighters and elected officials mobilized”.
In addition, he expressed his wish that “the next few hours” be of “contemplation” and “respect” and called an inter-ministerial meeting to examine the latest events.
I feel bad for my France. ????????????????????
An unacceptable situation.
All my thoughts go out to Naël’s family and loved ones, this little angel who left far too soon.— Kylian Mbappé (@KMbappe) June 28, 2023
For his part, the founder of La Francia Insumisa (LFI), the opposition member Jean-Luc Mélenchon, called for justice and criticized the government’s words: “The watchdogs order us to call for calm. We ask for justice, withdraw the legal action against the poor Nahel and suspend the murderous policeman and his accomplice who ordered him to shoot.”
Police violence is a recurring theme in France, where 13 people died in situations similar to the one in Nahel in 2022.
In the collective memory of the French are the riots that broke out in 2005 in the suburbs of large cities, after two teenagers were electrocuted while fleeing from the police in Clichy-sous-Bois, northeast of the capital.
In 2005, the government of then-conservative President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency, for the first time in metropolitan France since the end of the Algerian war of independence. The two accused police officers were acquitted in 2015.
Although the right-wing leader Éric Ciotti and the extreme right called for the immediate activation of the state of emergency, government sources said they are not considering it for now and that no police officer requested it at the crisis meeting.
The government is facing a delicate situation, especially since its criticism the day before created discomfort among the police unions, and seeks to combine firmness in the face of the riots with appeasement to prevent tension from escalating.
#night #protests #riots #France #death #young #man