Following a second night of protests over the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old boy at a traffic check, unrest and rioting spread throughout France on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning, Emmanuel Macron will preside over a government crisis meeting.
At least 150 people were detained during what Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin described as “a night of unbearable violence against the symbols of the republic: town halls, schools, police stations burned or attacked.”
In villages outside of Paris, as well as in the city of Toulouse in the southwest and towns all over the north, protesters set automobiles on fire, fired fireworks at police, and set public buildings on fire. As well as outside of Lyon, there were commotions in Amiens, Dijon, and St. Etienne.
Local media in Villeurbanne, Vénissieux, and Bron reported on flaming barricades constructed from scooter rentals and smoldering trash bins in the vicinity of Lyon. The town hall in Garges-lés-Gonesse, a suburb of Paris, was set on fire in an arson assault. In Mons-en-Baroeul, in northern France, the mayor said that some services had been “totally destroyed.” An abandoned tram was destroyed in Clamart, west of Paris. In places around Paris, notably Trappes, Gennevilliers, and Meudon, several police stations were targeted.
On Wednesday night, around 2,000 riot police were stationed in and around Paris as demonstrators set fire to vehicles and threw fireworks at law enforcement in the town of Nanterre, which lies outside of the capital and where Nahel, a 17-year-old teenager, was shot dead at close range during a traffic check on Tuesday. At first, it seemed as though the police had exaggerated the details surrounding the murder. The greater Paris area was the scene of occurrences that were covered by French media in many different locales. A town hall in Montreuil, on the eastern side of Paris, was shown in social media videos to be targeted by dozens of pyrotechnics.
Politicians were worried about the difficulty of quelling protracted rioting and unrest across France. Two teenage boys were killed at an electricity substation in Clichy-sous-Bois, a suburb of Paris, in 2005 while trying to elude police. This incident kicked off weeks of turmoil, which culminated in France announcing a state of emergency as more than 9,000 vehicles and dozens of public buildings and businesses were set on fire.
After a youngster who refused to stop for a traffic check was killed by French police, firefighters battle an oncoming blazing car near a protest in Nanterre, west of Paris.
After a police shooting in France, President Macron calls the teen’s death “inexcusable.”
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The use of deadly force by police against Nahel, a person of north African descent, has fueled a pervasive perception of police brutality in the racially varied districts of France’s largest cities.
“We’ve had enough of being treated in this manner. Two young guys introducing themselves as “avengers” hauled trash cans from a nearby estate to a smoldering barricade to add to it and declared, “This is for Nahel, we are Nahel. One person claimed that despite having three generations of family members living in France, “they are never going to accept us.”Police used flash-balls to scatter demonstrators who were burning trash in the 18th and 19th neighborhoods of northeastern Paris. Bottles were hurled in return from the audience.
After all the passengers were coerced from a bus in the Essonne region, south of the capital, the bus was set on fire, according to authorities.
A number of cars were set on fire in Toulouse, and the responding police and firefighters were shot at.
Earlier, President Emmanuel Macron urged calm and told reporters: “We have an adolescent who was killed, it is incomprehensible and awful. The loss of a young guy can be explained in no way. In a nation where top politicians frequently refrain from criticizing police due to public’ fears about their security, his comments were notably direct.
On Tuesday morning, the adolescent was caught disobeying traffic laws while operating a vehicle, according to the prosecution.
At first, according to the police, the boy was being driven at by a car that one of the officers had fired at. A video, which was making the rounds on social media and was verified by French news organizations, swiftly refuted this version of what happened. France’s human rights ombudsman has started an investigation, and a police officer is currently being looked into for shooting the youth and committing voluntary homicide.
A charge that Macron has repeatedly dismissed, rights groups claim there is institutional racism in France’s law enforcement forces.
“You have a video that is very clear: a police officer killed a young man of 17 years,” the boy’s family’s attorney Yassine Bouzrou stated. The shooting is clearly against the law, as is evident. According to the attorney, the family has filed a lawsuit against the cops accusing them of murder, cooperation in murder, and giving a false testimony.
The prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, addressed the National Assembly after the lawmakers observed a moment of sorrow and stated that the shooting “seems clearly not to comply with the rules.”
The victim’s mother was seen urging a memorial march in Nanterre on Thursday in a video posted to TikTok. Come one, come all; we will lead a revolution for my kid, she commanded.
With regard to traffic stops in France, Tuesday’s death was the third deadly gunshot thus far in 2023. An official from the national police indicated that there were a record 13 such shootings last year.
According to a Reuters count, there were three such murders in 2021 and two in 2020. This data reveals that since 2017, Black or Arab people have made up the majority of the victims.
The imprisoned police officer should be treated innocently until proven guilty, according to two powerful police unions in response to the criticism.
