In various French cities, rioting, looting, and protests are still going on as authorities prepare for the sixth day of unrest brought on by the police shooting death of a 17-year-old. Marseille, Nanterre, Paris, and other regions of the nation that have been experiencing turbulence for the past few days received reinforcements. The Emmanuel Macron administration claimed that the violence has “lessened” at this time, but 45,000 police officers have been placed on the streets across the country to control the situation.
In the meantime, hundreds of mourners from the nation’s Islamic population assembled on Saturday in agonising and tearful march from a mosque to a hillside cemetery to pay tribute to Nahel.
Since the teen’s death in Nanterre, west of Paris, more than 3,000 people have been detained or arrested altogether. Among them, about 700 persons were taken into custody on Sunday. The rioting that broke out after the murder also injured hundreds of police officers and firefighters.
Authorities claim that some 2,500 fires were started and that establishments were plundered. 700 stores have been destroyed, according to finance minister Bruno Le Maire, who also pledged government assistance to store owners.
While Strasbourg, Aubervilliers, Roubaix, Montreuil, and Drancy are among the other places touched by the violence, Nanterre and Marseille have been the epicentre of the rioting.
The riots were also audible in Lausanne, a nearby Swiss city, when numerous storefront windows and a store door were shattered. Authorities and a gang of youngsters who tossed Molotov cocktails and paving stones at them got into a fight, according to the police. Seven people—most of them teenagers—were taken into custody.
The top 5 developments are as follows:
1. Overnight, a burning automobile crashed into the mayor’s residence in the Paris suburb of Hay-les-Roses. While his family was sleeping and he was at the town hall watching the mayhem, Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun said his wife and one of his children were hurt in the incident at 1.30 am.
All public buses and trams, which have been the targets of the riots, were ordered to shut down nationally at night. Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, also issued a warning to social media platforms not to allow them to be used as platforms for incitement to violence.
2. Following nights of rioting throughout France, President Emmanuel Macron cancelled an official trip to Germany, which had a negative diplomatic impact on his standing. It had been 23 years since a French president had made a state visit to Germany.
3. In Nanterre, a Paris suburb where feelings over his loss are still raw, Nahel (last name withheld for privacy), whose death sparked the fury, was laid to rest on Saturday in a Muslim ceremony. He has only been given his first name, Nahel, in public.
4. The Summer Olympics, whose organisers were closely monitoring the situation as the Games’ preparations continued, are set to take place in Paris and other French cities just one year from now.
5. There have also been reports of violence in Lausanne, a French-speaking city in Switzerland. After stores in the city were attacked in a “echo” of ongoing widespread violence in neighbouring France, police detained seven persons, the majority of them were minors.
According to the AP, “several” businesses were broken into, and more than 100 people flocked to downtown Lausanne in response to calls made following the teen’s murder in France.
A dozen people were detained on Thursday in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, and several flames were put out, according to AP, in a separate but linked development.
What’s going on in France?
To protest the French government’s excessive use of force, demonstrators have set fire to cars and public structures and engaged in street brawls with police. The tragic shooting of the adolescent on Tuesday, which reignited the long-repressed conversation about race, set off the most recent round of violence.
Officially, France adheres to the colorblind universalist philosophy. Critics claim that ideology has concealed institutional racism for many years. The incident has shocked people all around the world, especially for a nation where gun violence is not as common as it is in the United States.
Nahel was shot while being pulled over. A video showed two officers, one of whom had his rifle pointed at the driver, standing at the car’s window. The policeman fired once through the windscreen as the adolescent accelerated.
The family of Nahel originates from Algeria. The mother of Nahel told media outlet France 5 that she was upset with the officer who shot her son but not with the police in general. “He saw a little Arab-looking kid, and he wanted to take his life,” she added.
The officer accused of killing Nahel was charged with voluntary homicide as a preliminary offence, which means that the investigating magistrates have a strong suspicion of wrongdoing but need to look into the matter further before bringing the case to trial. The officer’s use of force was not legally justifiable, according to Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache, based on his initial inquiry.
French police fatally shot 13 people who disobeyed traffic stops last year. Three additional individuals, including Nahel, perished in comparable situations this year. The deaths have sparked calls for greater accountability in France, which previously had racial justice riots following the Minnesota police shooting death of George Floyd.
The most recent unrest also serves as a reminder of the riots that rocked Clichy, France in 2005 as a result of the deaths of two adolescents who were electrocuted in a power substation while evading police.
Despite the crisis’s worsening situation, Macron refrained from using a 2005 option to declare a state of emergency.
