The funeral of a 17-year-old boy killed by a police officer began on Saturday, after a fourth consecutive night of looting and clashes in France, having led to more than 1,300 arrests, a record figure since the start of this urban violence.
“Rest his soul, may justice be done. I came to support the mother, she only had him, the poor thing, “declared to Agence France-Presse a woman who did not wish to give her name, leaving the funeral home of Nanterre, near Paris, where the tragedy took place.
Seized by an amateur video that contradicted the initial story given by the police, the point-blank shooting of a police motorcyclist and the death on Tuesday of 17-year-old Nahel M. continued to set fire to many working-class neighborhoods in the country. overnight from Friday to Saturday.
A very important device, no less than 45,000 police officers, made it possible to contain the violence for this fourth night of riots, of “less intensity”, according to the Ministry of the Interior. But the crisis unit met to examine a balance sheet which remains heavy on Saturday. In total, there were 1,311 arrests, much more than the 875 of the previous night, 79 police and gendarmes injured, some 1,350 vehicles burned and 234 buildings burned or degraded, according to this source.
The ministry also recorded 31 attacks on police stations, 16 attacks on municipal police stations and 11 on gendarmerie barracks, not to mention the many vandalized shops.
Saturday morning, traders from several cities in the country, including Lyon in the center-east, contemplated, annoyed, the extent of the damage.
“Monday, I call [l’agence immobilière] Omnium and I put everything on sale, that’s enough, ”swears, for example, the owner of a lingerie shop, in a pedestrian street strewn with debris, in the city center.
“We have to leave, that’s all there is left to do, when the center is deserted, the mayor will be happy,” adds the manager of a small hotel nearby. “I prefer not to say anything, they took everything,” sighs the boss of a luxury clothing store sweeping the debris in his shop emptied by looters.
Young people in hoods
In this city or in Grenoble, clashes opposed until late at night gangs of young people often hooded, moving around or on scooters and firing dozens of mortars towards the police who responded with tear gas canisters.
In Vaulx-en-Velin, in the Lyon suburbs, a rioter fired a shotgun at three police officers who were injured, according to a police source.
Marseille, France’s second-largest city in the south, also experienced a night of violence, prompting Interior Minister Gérard Darmanin to send reinforcements there.
The Paris region has not been spared, three towns near the capital having also decided to establish a curfew, like other towns in the provinces.
On Friday, the Minister of the Interior announced “more specialized units” such as the RAID and the GIGN, elite troops of the police and the gendarmerie, as well as the dispatch of light armored vehicles from the gendarmerie.
“The time of violence must end to give way to that of mourning, dialogue and reconstruction”, urged the players of the France soccer team, in a press release relayed by the star captain, Kylian Mbappé.
“Spirit of Responsibility”
The government had decided to cancel all “large-scale events”, such as Mylène Farmer’s concerts on Friday and Saturday at the Stade de France, and called for buses and trams to be shut down across the country after 9 p.m. , local hour.
The death of Nahel M., whose family is originally from Algeria, has revived the subject of police violence and racism in France, where 13 people died after a police check last year, including understood across borders.
“Obviously, there is a malaise especially in the large French outskirts, and it exploded when there was this very sad episode which was not supposed to happen,” said Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on Saturday. .
The question of the state of emergency is raised in the country by part of the political world and scrutinized abroad, especially since France is hosting the Rugby World Cup in the fall, then the Olympic Games. in Paris in the summer of 2024.
The state of emergency, which allows the administrative authorities to take exceptional measures such as a traffic ban, was decreed in November 2005 after ten days of riots in the French suburbs triggered by the death of two teenagers, electrocuted in an electrical transformer where they had hidden to escape the police.
This time, Nahel M. was shot in the chest by point-blank fire from one of the two police officers who were trying to immobilize his vehicle, after a refusal to comply, according to the authorities.
This policeman, a 38-year-old motorcyclist, was charged Thursday with intentional homicide and placed in detention.