More than 40,000 police and gendarmes were mobilized on Sunday for a third night in a row, in France, the situation remaining extremely tense throughout the country.
It was the death of Nahel, 17 years old and killed by a police officer during a traffic check last Tuesday, which set fire to the powder. But “the violence committed in France no longer has much to do with the death of young Nahel”, can we read in the daily The world. The intensity of the demonstrations has increased, and the vast popular protest movement is targeting the authorities, businesses and public transport, among others.
Sunday evening at 11:30 p.m. (local time), the authorities had made 49 arrests throughout the territory, according to the Ministry of the Interior. In the night from Saturday to Sunday alone, ten police stations, ten gendarmerie barracks and six municipal police stations were targeted, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Some 719 people were arrested.
The weekend was also marked by an event that aroused the indignation of the political class: the attack on the home of the mayor of the town of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, in the suburbs of Paris. Early Sunday morning, rioters broke down the gate of Vincent Jeanbrun’s home with the help of a burnt-out car. The politician was not at home at the time, but his wife and two children aged five and seven were sleeping inside. The mayor’s wife was seriously injured in the tibia while fleeing with her children.
The government will “not allow any violence to pass”, affirmed the Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, present in L’Haÿ-les-Roses on Sunday afternoon. An investigation was opened by the prosecution for attempted murder.
The president is due to meet 220 mayors on Monday whose municipalities have been “victims of abuse”.
“I hear mortar fire”
“The atmosphere is quite heavy in Paris and its surroundings, so I decided to leave, just to escape that. “On the phone, Lucien Chapotte is calm despite the alarming situation. Reached in France by The duty, the journalism student at Sciences Po Paris explains that he has temporarily left the city of Clamart, where he lives for studies and which is about twenty minutes by car from downtown Paris. He preferred to spend the weekend with his parents in Angers, which is several hours away.
“In Clamart, I’m quite far from areas of tension, but despite everything, I don’t sleep. I hear firework mortar fire in the neighborhoods further north. To limit riots, the City adopted a curfew last Thursday, in effect from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. The measure is expected to end on Monday. But this is not enough to curb the ardor of some demonstrators.
“In the morning, when you wake up, you smell the smell of smoke. I’m running, and the atmosphere is more charged, more polluted, there is a greyish haze, he continues. It’s not very pleasant. »
But in Angers, where Lucien Chapotte took refuge in the hope of finding a quieter atmosphere, the mobilizations also raged. Last Friday, during a left-wing protest against police brutality, far-right activists burst in, armed with baseball bats. The police intervened quickly.
call for calm
It is reluctantly that the 22-year-old student must return to Paris on Monday to continue his internship there. “I don’t necessarily want to go back. Even if it’s calmed down a bit, it’s not very serene. »
With 45,000 members of the security forces deployed in the territory overnight from Sunday to Monday, “the government has put the means […] so that it calms down, ”says Lucien. “And there is perhaps a slight awareness with the speaking out of certain people. »
The student refers to remarks made on Sunday by Nadia, the grandmother of young Nahel, on the airwaves of the French channel BFMTV. “I blame the policeman who killed my grandson. The police men, […] fortunately they are there. People who are breaking, I tell them “Stop, stop”. They took Nahel’s pretext! »
French President Emmanuel Macron, for his part, held a “situation update” on Sunday afternoon with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and a few ministers who are members of an interministerial crisis unit. Such a meeting should take place again within the next 48 hours.
The government has not formally ruled out the idea of establishing a state of emergency, a measure called for by several right-wing politicians. The adoption of this measure would strengthen the power of the authorities, who could then restrict certain freedoms without first having to obtain the approval of justice. A state of emergency was declared in the fall of 2005 to counter popular riots following the death by electrocution of two teenagers who were fleeing a police check. More recently, the state of emergency was applied following the terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015, in Paris.
The mobilizations in France are echoed internationally. In the current climate, Emmanuel Macron has postponed his state visit to Germany, scheduled for Sunday evening until Tuesday. The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he was “concerned” on Sunday, given the importance of the Franco-German couple for the functioning of the European Union, while saying he was “convinced” that the French President would find the means to emerge “quickly” from the crisis.
Six teenagers and an adult have been arrested following damage to stores in Lausanne, inspired by riots in France, Swiss police said on Sunday.
With Agence France-Presse