Authorities in France stepped up efforts to quell widespread unrest over the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old that continues to comb the country for its fourth evening, with greater than 1,300 protesters arrested as cars and buildings were set on fire and shops looted.
The French Interior Ministry announced 1,311 arrests across the country – with 45,000 police officers dispersed in a to date failed try to curb the violence – as family and friends prepared Saturday to bury a teenager of Algerian and Moroccan descent, identified only as Nahel, in the Paris suburb of Nanterre where he lived and was killed Tuesday when a police officer shot him during an arrest.
Several hundred mourners lined as much as enter the grand mosque in Nanterre to view the open coffin, which was guarded by volunteers in yellow vests while dozens of onlookers watched from across the street.
Salsabil, a young Arab woman, said she had come to support her family.
“I believe it is important that all of us stick together” she said.
Marie, 60, said she had lived in Nanterre for 50 years and said there had all the time been problems between the locals and the cops.
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“This positively has to stop. The federal government is totally out of touch with our reality,” she said.
Natel was scheduled to be buried later that day in the city cemetery.
Despite President Emmanuel Macron’s appeal to folks to maintain the youth at home, street clashes between young demonstrators and the police continued.
In line with the authorities, about 2,500 shops were set on fire and shops were looted.
Macron postponed his state visit to Germany, which was attributable to start on Sunday because of the riots.
Police have made a total of 2,400 arrests since the riots began on Tuesday night – and the number is rising as greater than half of these occurred on the fourth night of violence.
A whole bunch of police and firefighters were injured, including 79 during the night, but authorities didn’t disclose the number of injuries sustained by the protesters.
As the number of arrests rose, French government officials said the violence was starting to subside because of tightened security measures.
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Nevertheless, the destruction was extensive, from Paris to Marseilles and Lyon, and even far-off, in French overseas territorieswhere the 54-year-old died after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana on the north coast of South America.
France national football team – including a global star Kylian Mbappe He begged for an end to the violence.
“Many of us come from working-class neighborhoods. We also share this sense of pain and sadness” after killing Nahel, the players wrote in a statement. “Violence solves nothing. … There are other peaceful and constructive ways to precise yourself.”
They said it was time for “mourning, dialogue and rebuilding” as an alternative.
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Nahel’s mother, identified as Mounia M., told France 5 television that she was offended with the officer who shot, but not with the police in general.
“He saw a little Arab kid and he desired to take his own life,” she said. “A policeman cannot take a gun and shoot our youngsters, take their lives.”
The video captured the moment two officers stood next to Nahel’s automobile and pointed a gun at the teenager, with one allegedly telling him that he would “get a bullet in the head”.
Nahel, whose name has not been released, drove off in the automobile, prompting the officer to tug the trigger, killing the teenager.
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His killing sparked a national outcry and accusations of deep racism in law enforcement, but the officers’ lawyers say the cops believed their lives were in danger because the teenager threatened to run them over.
Authorities said the average age of the protesters was 17.
The riots are the worst France has seen in years and put latest pressure on Macron, who accused social media of inciting violence.
Early Saturday, firefighters in Nanterre put out fires began by protesters that left burnt stays of cars strewn across the streets. In the neighboring suburb of Colombes, protesters knocked over garbage bins and used them as makeshift barricades.
The robbers broke into a gun shop in the evening and made off with the guns in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, police said. Officers in Marseille arrested nearly 90 people as groups of protesters torched cars and smashed shop windows to take what was inside.
In line with police, buildings and businesses were also vandalized in the eastern city of Lyon, where a third of the roughly 30 arrests made were related to theft. Authorities reported fires in the streets after an unauthorized protest that gathered greater than 1,000 people on Friday night.
Despite repeated calls from the government for calm and tougher policing, there was also brazen violence in broad daylight. An Apple store was looted in the eastern city of Strasbourg on Friday, and windows at a fast food restaurant were smashed in a shopping mall in the Paris area.
In line with the Interior Ministry, with fewer fires, burnt cars and attacks on police stations across France than the previous night, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin stated that the nighttime violence was “much less intense”.
Darmanin ordered the nightly shutdown of all public buses and trams on Friday, which were amongst the targets of the riots. He also said he had warned social networks not to permit them for use as channels for calls for violence.
“They were very cooperative,” Darmanin said, adding that French authorities are providing information to platforms in the hope of working together to discover those that incite violence.
“We’ll prosecute anyone who uses these social networks to commit acts of violence,” he said.
Macron focused on social media platforms that conveyed dramatic images of vandalism and burning cars and buildings. He singled out Snapchat and TikTok, said they were used to arrange unrest and served as channels for copycat violence.
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The violence comes just over a 12 months before Paris and other French cities are attributable to host Olympic athletes and tens of millions of visitors to the Summer Olympic Games, whose organizers have been closely monitoring the situation in preparation for the competition.
The Paris Olympics training pool was burned down by rioters on Thursday night.
The police officer charged with killing Nahel has been charged with a preliminary charge of voluntary manslaughter. Preliminary allegations mean that investigating judges have serious suspicions of wrongdoing, but must conduct a more thorough investigation before going to court.
Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache said his initial investigation led him to conclude that the officer’s use of the weapon was not legitimate.
Thirteen people were fatally shot by French police last 12 months for disobeying traffic rules. This 12 months, three more people, including Nahel, died in similar circumstances.
The deaths sparked demands for more accountability in France, which also saw protests against racial justice following the 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police.
With postal wires