French authorities were seeking to quell unrest on Friday after 875 people were arrested across the country overnight in the third straight night of street violence over the police killing of a teenager.
(Bloomberg) — French authorities were seeking to quell unrest on Friday after 875 people were arrested across the country overnight in the third straight night of street violence over the police killing of a teenager.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the government would consider options at a crisis meeting being held with President Emmanuel Macron on Friday.
“We will examine all the possibilities with one priority, restoring order across the country,” Borne said, asked whether the government would consider declaring a state of emergency.
Protesters targeted municipal buildings, such as town halls and libraries in Marseille and in the Seine-Saint-Denis department north of Paris. Street violence resulted in attacks on 119 public buildings and 79 police stations, the Interior Ministry said.
Read more: These Are the French Cities Hit by Clashes Over Teen’s Killing
Twelve buses run by Paris-area transport operator RATP were incinerated in a depot on the outskirts of the capital. Some stores throughout the country were also vandalized, including in central Paris.
The majority of those arrested overnight Thursday were between 14 and 18 years old, Agence France-Presse reported.
Anger erupted across the country after Nahel, 17, was fatally shot at close range in his car Tuesday in Nanterre, a suburb west of Paris. Video posted on social media showed two police officers leaning into the car, with one of them shooting as the driver pulls away. Authorities haven’t released Nahel’s last name.
The officer who fired the shot was charged with murder and is being held in pre-trial detention. Pascal Prache, the Nanterre prosecutor, said on Thursday that his office determined that the legal conditions for the use of a weapon were “not met.”
Laurent-Franck Lienard, a lawyer for the officer, told Europe 1 radio that the latter believed he “needed” to shoot.
Nahel’s mother, identified only as Mounia, said in an interview with France 5 that she did not blame the police. “I blame one person, the one who took my son’s life,” she said. “He saw an Arab face, a little kid. He wanted to take his life.”
Authorities significantly scaled up the number of security forces ahead of Thursday night’s protests, mobilizing 40,000 officers throughout the country, including 5,000 in Paris. Bus and tramway services were suspended from 9 p.m. in the greater Paris area.
“What worries us is that rioters are determined to attack institutions under the republic, whether it’s town halls, nurseries, schools, civic centers or police stations,” Matthieu Valet, spokesman for the SICP police union, said in an interview with CNews Friday.
Paris regional president Valerie Pécresse moved on Friday to release €20 million in emergency aid to help local mayors repair damaged public buildings.
The unrest has echoes of riots that broke out for weeks in 2005 after two boys died in an electricity substation following a police chase, and has thrown a spotlight on French policing and long-simmering tensions in the country’s poorer suburbs.
–With assistance from James Regan and Samy Adghirni.
(Updates with details on crisis meeting in second paragraph)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.