2023-06-30 02:12:45
France is spending another night in the chaos of urban violence, the third in a row after the death of a teenager near Paris, killed by a police officer charged and imprisoned since for intentional homicide.
• Read also: A warning to Canadians in France
• Read also: Here’s what you need to know about the riots in France
• Read also: Violence during the white march for the young driver killed by the police in France
Nahel, 17, was killed by a shot in the chest during a roadside check by two police bikers, after refusing to comply in Nanterre, west of Paris. In France, the minimum age to drive legally is 18 years old.
According to a video authenticated by AFP, one of the two police officers held him at gunpoint, then fired at point-blank range.
The teenager’s death had already led to two nights of violence in France, particularly in the Paris region, and the scenario repeated itself overnight from Thursday to Friday, despite a white march during the day that the authorities hoped would herald appeasement.
AFP
At 2:30 a.m. (0:30 a.m. GMT), the police had made at least 328 arrests at the national level, according to those around Gérald Darmanin.
The victim’s mother, on a van, wearing a “Justice for Nahel” t-shirt, opened the procession from Nanterre, which brought together 6,200 people, according to a police source. They went to the scene of the tragedy to observe a minute of silence.
But the demonstration ended in confusion, with clashes, tear gas and fireworks, a few fires and destroyed street furniture. At least one bank was ransacked and several cars were set on fire, according to AFP.
According to an intelligence note quoted by a police source, the violence could become “generalized” during the “next nights”, marked by “actions targeted at the police and the symbols of the State or power public”.
In Pau (south-west) in particular, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the police station, informed the prefecture of the department.
In Paris itself, the famous Halles and the rue de Rivoli which leads to the Louvre Museum saw some of their businesses and stores “vandalized”, “looted, even burned”, detailed a high-ranking officer of the national police.
AFP
At least three towns near the capital have decided to introduce a curfew, sometimes for several days, on their entire territory or in certain districts only, for all or for minors only.
Clamart, near Paris, and Compiègne, north of the capital, have thus introduced this measure from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. (7 p.m. to 4 a.m. GMT).
In Lille (north), the town hall of a working-class district in the south was set on fire and another, in the east of the city, was stoned, according to the Hôtel de Ville.
AFP
In the Paris region, buses and trams have stopped running since 9 p.m. (7 p.m. GMT) on Thursday.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had announced the mobilization Thursday evening of 40,000 police and gendarmes, including 5,000 in Paris (against 2,000 the previous night).
According to a police source, the RAID and the GIGN, elite intervention units of the police and the gendarmerie respectively, have been deployed in major cities of the country such as Toulouse (south-west), Marseille (south-east ), Lyon (south-east), Lille (north), or Bordeaux (south-west).
The government assured that the triggering of the state of emergency, demanded by certain voices of the political right, was “not an option considered today”.
The case has reignited controversy over law enforcement action in France, where a record 13 deaths were recorded in 2022 after refusals to comply.
“I don’t blame the police, I blame a person: the one who took my son’s life,” said Mounia M., the teenager’s mother, in an interview broadcast Thursday evening on the France 5 television channel.
AFP
“The public prosecutor’s office considers that the legal conditions for the use of the weapon” by the 38-year-old policeman who fired the shot “are not met”, said the public prosecutor of Nanterre on Thursday morning. , Pascal Prache.
In police custody, “the first” and “last words” of the policeman who shot the shot were an apology to the family, his lawyer, Me Laurent-Franck Liénard, reported Thursday on the French television channel BFMTV, saying that his client “did not want to kill”.
The police officer was charged with intentional homicide and placed in pre-trial detention, the public prosecutor then announced.
The tragedy at the origin of the conflagration occurred during a police check of the car driven by Nahel, known for refusals to comply, the last having resulted in his presentation to the prosecution (public ministry) last Sunday, in view of a summons in September before a juvenile court.
#night #violence #France #death #teenager #killed #police #officer