(Nanterre) France spent another night in the chaos of urban violence from Thursday to Friday, the third in a row after the death of a teenager near Paris, killed by a police officer indicted and imprisoned since for intentional homicide.
What there is to know
- A 17-year-old boy, Nahel, was killed by a police officer on Tuesday during a traffic check in Nanterre;
- The circumstances of his death aroused emotion and anger in Nanterre, which experienced its second night of riots. Clashes also erupted in other French cities, including Lyon, Toulouse and Brest;
- French President Emmanuel Macron ruled Nahel’s death “inexplicable” and “inexcusable” on Wednesday, but condemned the riots on Thursday;
- The march in tribute to the young man took place Thursday afternoon in Nanterre;
- The police officer responsible for the fatal shooting was charged with intentional homicide;
- The police officer apologized to Nahel’s family while in custody, according to his lawyer.
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 death of the teenager 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 announced appeasement .
Around 3 a.m. (1 a.m.), at least 421 people had been arrested at the national level, according to the entourage of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, “the essentials” being aged between 14 and 18 years old.
PHOTOGONZALO FUENTES, REUTERS
French police move into position during clashes with demonstrators in Nanterre.
The victim’s mother, on a van, wearing a “Justice for Nahel” t-shirt, had 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 many cars were set on fire, according to AFP.
Risk of “generalization”
According to an intelligence note quoted by a police source, the violence could “generalize” over the “next nights”, marked by “actions targeted at the police and 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.
PHOTO KENZO TRIBOUILLARD, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Firefighters put out a fire in Lille.
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 senior official of the national police.
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. (3 p.m. to 12 a.m., Eastern time).
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 town hall.
In the Paris region, buses and trams have stopped running since 9 p.m. (3 p.m. Eastern time) Thursday.
PHOTO BERTRAND GUAY, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
The victim’s mother, on a van, wearing a “Justice for Nahel” t-shirt, opened the parade, which brought together 6,200 people, according to a police source.
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).
PHOTO PASCAL ROSSIGNOL, REUTERS
Faced with the risk of new unrest, the government announced that it would mobilize 40,000 police and gendarmes on Thursday evening, quadrupling the numbers deployed in the field in one day.
The police officer charged
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.
“The prosecution considers that the legal conditions for the use of the weapon” by the 38-year-old policeman who shot the shot “are not met”, underlined Thursday morning the public prosecutor of Nanterre, Pascal Prache.
PHOTO PASCAL ROSSIGNOL, REUTERS
Since the death of 17-year-old Nahel M. during a roadside check on Tuesday, tensions from the Paris suburbs have spread to a number of cities overnight Wednesday and Thursday.
In police custody, “the first” and “last words” of the policeman who fired the shot were an apology to the family, his lawyer, Mr.e Laurent-Franck Liénard, on the French television channel BFMTV, claiming that his client “did not want to kill”.
The police officer was charged with intentional homicide and placed in pre-trial detention, the prosecution 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 given rise to his presentation to the prosecution last Sunday, in view of a summons in September before a juvenile court.