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Nanterre: France saw unrest spread to major cities in Thursday’s third night of rioting as president Emmanuel Macron He fought to contain an escalating crisis triggered by the fatal police shooting of a teenager of Algerian and Moroccan descent during a traffic stop.
40,000 police officers were deployed across France – nearly four times the number mobilized on Wednesday – but there was little sign that the government’s calls to de-escalate violence would quell the anger.
In Nanterre, the working-class city in the western suburbs of Paris where Nahil M. is murdered. The 17-year-old was shot dead on Tuesday. Protesters set cars and barricaded streets on fire and hurled projectiles at police after a peaceful vigil.
Doodle protestersNahed’s revengeAcross buildings, as night fell, a bank was set on fire before firefighters put it out and an elite police unit deployed an armored vehicle.
In central Paris, a Nike shoe store was stormed, 14 people were arrested and 16 others were arrested with stolen items after shop windows along the Rue Rivoli shopping street were smashed, Paris police said.
On Thursday evening, the national police said that officers encountered new incidents in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse and Lille, including fires and fireworks.
Videos on social media showed numerous fires across the country, including at a bus station in a northern Paris suburb and a tramway in the eastern city of Lyon.
In Marseille, France’s second largest city, police fired tear gas canisters during clashes with young men in the tourist hotspot of Le Vieux Port, the city’s main newspaper, La Provence, reported.
The incident fueled longstanding complaints of police violence and systemic racism within law enforcement agencies from rights groups and within low-income, ethnically mixed suburbs around France’s major cities.
The local prosecutor said the officer involved was the subject of a formal investigation for voluntary homicide and would be placed in prison under preventive detention.
Under the French legal system, being subject to a formal investigation is similar to being charged in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions.
“The public prosecutor considers that the legal conditions for the use of weapons have not been met,” Prosecutor Pascal Brach told a news conference.
one shot
The teen was shot during rush hour on Tuesday morning. He initially fails to stop after the Mercedes AMG he was driving is spotted in a bus lane. Two police officers crash the car into a traffic jam.
As the car attempted to escape, one of the officers fired at point-blank range through the driver’s window. Pascal Brach, the prosecutor of Nanterre, said Nahil died from a single bullet wound to his left arm and chest.
The prosecutor said the officer admitted firing the fatal shot, and told investigators he wanted to prevent a car chase, fearing he or anyone else would be injured after the teen committed multiple traffic violations.
The officer’s lawyer, Laurent Franck Lenard, said his client asked the victim’s family to forgive him. He said the officer aimed at the driver’s leg but was struck by shock, causing him to shoot toward his chest.
“He had to be stopped, but it’s clear (the officer) didn’t want to kill the driver,” Leonard said on BFM television, adding that his client’s detention was being used to try to pacify the rioters.
Prash said that Nahil was known to the police for not complying with traffic stop orders.
On Wednesday, Macron said the shooting was unforgivable. While holding his emergency meeting, he also condemned the disturbances.
vigil march
At a rally in Nanterre to commemorate Nahl, participants criticized what they saw as a culture of police impunity and a failure to reform law enforcement in a country that has seen waves of riots and protests over police behaviour.
Thousands thronged the streets. On a flatbed truck, the teenager’s mother waved to the crowd, wearing a white T-shirt that read “Justice for Nahil” and the date of his death.
“I have nothing against the police. I have something against one person, he who killed my son. He didn’t have to kill my son,” Nael’s mother told France 5 television after the rally.
The unrest brought back memories of the 2005 riots that rocked France for three weeks and forced President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency.
The wave of violence erupted in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois and spread across the country after the death of two young men who were electrocuted at an electricity substation while they were hiding from the police.
Two officers were acquitted in a trial 10 years later.
Tuesday’s killing is the third fatal shooting during a traffic stop in France so far in 2023, a national police spokesman said, down from a record 13 last year.
There were three such killings in 2021 and two in 2020, according to a Reuters tally, which shows the majority of victims since 2017 have been black or of Arab descent.
People’s patience is running out, said Karima Khatim, a local councilor in Plan Mesnil, northeast of Paris.
“We have experienced this injustice many times before,” she said.
40,000 police officers were deployed across France – nearly four times the number mobilized on Wednesday – but there was little sign that the government’s calls to de-escalate violence would quell the anger.
In Nanterre, the working-class city in the western suburbs of Paris where Nahil M. is murdered. The 17-year-old was shot dead on Tuesday. Protesters set cars and barricaded streets on fire and hurled projectiles at police after a peaceful vigil.
Doodle protestersNahed’s revengeAcross buildings, as night fell, a bank was set on fire before firefighters put it out and an elite police unit deployed an armored vehicle.
In central Paris, a Nike shoe store was stormed, 14 people were arrested and 16 others were arrested with stolen items after shop windows along the Rue Rivoli shopping street were smashed, Paris police said.
On Thursday evening, the national police said that officers encountered new incidents in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse and Lille, including fires and fireworks.
Videos on social media showed numerous fires across the country, including at a bus station in a northern Paris suburb and a tramway in the eastern city of Lyon.
In Marseille, France’s second largest city, police fired tear gas canisters during clashes with young men in the tourist hotspot of Le Vieux Port, the city’s main newspaper, La Provence, reported.
The incident fueled longstanding complaints of police violence and systemic racism within law enforcement agencies from rights groups and within low-income, ethnically mixed suburbs around France’s major cities.
The local prosecutor said the officer involved was the subject of a formal investigation for voluntary homicide and would be placed in prison under preventive detention.
Under the French legal system, being subject to a formal investigation is similar to being charged in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions.
“The public prosecutor considers that the legal conditions for the use of weapons have not been met,” Prosecutor Pascal Brach told a news conference.
one shot
The teen was shot during rush hour on Tuesday morning. He initially fails to stop after the Mercedes AMG he was driving is spotted in a bus lane. Two police officers crash the car into a traffic jam.
As the car attempted to escape, one of the officers fired at point-blank range through the driver’s window. Pascal Brach, the prosecutor of Nanterre, said Nahil died from a single bullet wound to his left arm and chest.
The prosecutor said the officer admitted firing the fatal shot, and told investigators he wanted to prevent a car chase, fearing he or anyone else would be injured after the teen committed multiple traffic violations.
The officer’s lawyer, Laurent Franck Lenard, said his client asked the victim’s family to forgive him. He said the officer aimed at the driver’s leg but was struck by shock, causing him to shoot toward his chest.
“He had to be stopped, but it’s clear (the officer) didn’t want to kill the driver,” Leonard said on BFM television, adding that his client’s detention was being used to try to pacify the rioters.
Prash said that Nahil was known to the police for not complying with traffic stop orders.
On Wednesday, Macron said the shooting was unforgivable. While holding his emergency meeting, he also condemned the disturbances.
vigil march
At a rally in Nanterre to commemorate Nahl, participants criticized what they saw as a culture of police impunity and a failure to reform law enforcement in a country that has seen waves of riots and protests over police behaviour.
Thousands thronged the streets. On a flatbed truck, the teenager’s mother waved to the crowd, wearing a white T-shirt that read “Justice for Nahil” and the date of his death.
“I have nothing against the police. I have something against one person, he who killed my son. He didn’t have to kill my son,” Nael’s mother told France 5 television after the rally.
The unrest brought back memories of the 2005 riots that rocked France for three weeks and forced President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency.
The wave of violence erupted in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois and spread across the country after the death of two young men who were electrocuted at an electricity substation while they were hiding from the police.
Two officers were acquitted in a trial 10 years later.
Tuesday’s killing is the third fatal shooting during a traffic stop in France so far in 2023, a national police spokesman said, down from a record 13 last year.
There were three such killings in 2021 and two in 2020, according to a Reuters tally, which shows the majority of victims since 2017 have been black or of Arab descent.
People’s patience is running out, said Karima Khatim, a local councilor in Plan Mesnil, northeast of Paris.
“We have experienced this injustice many times before,” she said.
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