Riots erupted in French cities for the fourth night as the government dispatched 45,000 police officers and numerous armoured vehicles to quell protests prompted by an officer’s deadly shooting of a teenager.
The interior ministry of France reported that 994 individuals were arrested overnight, up from 875 the previous night, amid the violence that has driven President Emmanuel Macron into the greatest crisis of his presidency since the Yellow Vest rallies.
“Violence committed during the night was lower in intensity compared to the previous night,” the ministry wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
Buildings and vehicles have been set on fire, and stores have been looted across the country, especially in Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg, and Lille.
Protests also raged in Paris, where Nahel M., a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan origin, was shot during a traffic stop in the French capital’s Nanterre neighbourhood on Tuesday.
According to Reuters, his funeral will take place later on Saturday.
Nahel’s death, which was captured on film, has revived long-standing allegations of police aggression and bigotry in poor and ethnically mixed urban communities.
The arrests on Friday night included 80 people in Marseille, France’s second-largest city and home to many people of North African heritage.
Images on social media showed an explosion rattling Marseille’s ancient port neighbourhood. Authorities in the city stated they were looking into the reason but did not believe there were any casualties.
According French police, rioters in central Marseille raided a gun store and grabbed some hunting rifles but no ammunition. According to authorities, one person was caught carrying a firearm that was most likely purchased from the business. Police were now stationed outside the business.
More troops are needed.
Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan has requested that the French government dispatch extra troops immediately.
“The scenes of pillaging and violence are unacceptable,” he stated late Friday in a tweet.
Three police officers were injured in the early hours of Saturday. A police helicopter flew by.
The gendarmes police force deployed armoured personnel carriers and a helicopter in Lyon, France’s third-largest city.
Gerald Darmanin, the Interior Minister, had requested local authorities to suspend bus and tram traffic and had written to firefighters and police personnel, stating he could rely on them
When asked on a television news programme whether the government could declare a state of emergency, Darmanin responded, “Quite simply, we’re not ruling out any hypothesis, and we’ll see after tonight what the President of the Republic chooses.”
On Friday night, police evacuated demonstrators from the landmark central Place de la Concorde area in Paris.
Darmanin stated more than 200 police officers have been hurt since the turmoil began, and hundreds of rioters have been arrested, with the average age being 17.
Macron had already asked parents to keep their children off the streets.
National football team players released a rare statement urging calm. “Violence must cease in order for mourning, dialogue, and reconstruction to take place,” they stated in a statement shared on Kylian Mbappe’s Instagram account.
Read more : Greece boat tragedy – ‘human trafficker’ arrested in Sheikhupura
Since the protests began, looters have trashed dozens of stores and set fire to almost 2,000 vehicles.
Two concerts at the Stade de France, on the outskirts of Paris, were cancelled. The Tour de France organisers said they were prepared to react to any situation when the cycle race arrived in France on Monday after beginning in Spain.
Meeting to discuss the crisis
Macron left an EU conference in Brussels early to attend a second cabinet crisis meeting in two days, requesting that social media erase “the most sensitive” images of rioting and provide the identity of those inciting violence.
Social media videos showed burning metropolitan landscapes. A tram in Lyon’s eastern city was set on fire, while 12 buses were destroyed in a depot in Aubervilliers, northern Paris.
Darmanin met with Meta, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok representatives. Snapchat stated that it would not tolerate content that promoted violence.
Mohamed Jakoubi, a friend of the victim’s family who watched Nahel grow up, said the wrath was fueled by a sense of injustice following cases of police violence against minority ethnic communities, many of which were former French colonies.
“We are fed up, and we are French as well.” “We are not scum; we are against violence,” he stated.
As several Western countries cautioned their citizens to be cautious, some tourists were concerned, while others supported the protests.
