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PremiumFrance Protest Updates: France has been severely hit by riots following the death of a 17-year-old boy who was killed by a policeman on Saturday. Since then, chaos and violence have erupted in several France cities which is a potent reminder of the persistent poverty, discrimination, unemployment, and other lack of opportunity in neighborhoods around France where many residents trace their roots to former French colonies -- like where Nahel grew up.
Amid the chaos, the French police arrested thousands of people while President Emmanuel Macron appealed to parents and young children not to get influenced by social media arguments and instigate violence.
Nahel was shot during a traffic stop on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. The video showed two officers at the window of the car, one with his gun pointed at the driver. On Saturday, Nahel was buried peacefully at a hilltop cemetery in Nanterre, the Paris suburb where he was killed.
The violence comes just over a year before Paris and other French cities are due to host Olympic athletes.
Last year, the French police killed 13 people who did not comply with traffic stops. This year, three more people, including Nahel, died under similar circumstances. The deaths have prompted demands for more accountability in France, which also saw racial justice protests after George Floyd's killing by police in Minnesota.
Read all the latest updated on France's situation at Mint's LIVE blog:
Hundreds of people have been arrested by French authorities on the fifth night of unrest sparked by the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old. According to the AFP news agency, a total of 322 had been arrested across France as of 1:30 am (0030 GMT) on Sunday though the level of violence appeared to have declined.
In Paris and its nearby regions, where around 7,000 officers were out in force, 126 people had been arrested as of 1:30 am Sunday.
A number of towns have imposed overnight curfews.
Hundreds of mourners from France’s Islamic community formed a solemn procession from a mosque to a hillside cemetery on Saturday to bury a 17-year-old whose killing by police has triggered days of rioting across the nation.
At a hilltop cemetery in Nanterre, the Paris suburb where the teen identified only as Nahel was killed, hundreds stood along the road to pay tribute as mourners carried his white casket from a mosque to the burial site.
Nahel's family has roots in Algeria. Nahel’s mother, dressed in white, walked inside to applause and headed toward the grave. Many of the men were young and Arab or Black, coming to mourn a boy who could have been them. Inside the cemetery gate, the casket was lifted above the crowd and carried toward the grave.
French fashion house Celine has cancelled its menswear show in Paris this weekend due to ongoing riots sparked by the police killing of a teenager, designer Hedi Slimane said Saturday.
"A fashion show in Paris, while France and its capital are bereaved and bruised, seems... inconsiderate and totally misplaced," Slimane wrote in French on Instagram.
He said it was "a great disappointment" to cancel the show, due to take place in the French capital on Sunday, but that the "uncertain evolution of the very serious troubles" meant it was necessary for the security of his team and guests.
France has been hit by four nights of protests over the death of teenager Nahel M., shot dead by a policeman after refusing to stop his car.
Menswear week finished in Paris on June 25 but Slimane, one of the most influential designers in men's fashion, has lately chosen to present outside the official schedule.
The cancellation will raise questions for other fashion houses, since Paris is set to host the haute couture week starting from Monday.
Several cultural events have been cancelled due to the riots, including two concerts at the Stade de France by one of the country's most popular singers, Mylene Farmer, and the last night of the Fnac Live festival in the capital. (AFP)
Due to the unrest in France, President Emmanuel Macron has postponed his state visit to Germany, AP reported German authorities as saying.
Rioting raged in cities around France for a fourth night despite a huge police deployment and 1,311 arrests, with cars and buildings set ablaze and stores looted, as family and friends prepared Saturday to bury the 17-year-old whose killing by police unleashed the unrest.
France's Interior Ministry announced the new figure for arrests around the country, where 45,000 police officers fanned out in a so-far unsuccessful bid to quell violence.
Despite an appeal to parents by President Emmanuel Macron to keep their children at home, street clashes between young protesters and police raged on. About 2,500 fires were set and stores were ransacked, according to authorities. (AFP)
France was reeling on Saturday from a fourth night of rioting as the family of Nahel M, whose shooting by a police officer sparked the unrest, prepared for the teenager's funeral.
Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot during a traffic stop on Tuesday in the French capital's Nanterre suburb.
Roads leading to the funeral parlour and the cemetery would be shut off, news agency Reuters reported.
France's interior ministry said that 994 people had been arrested on the fourth night of the clashes, compared with 875 the previous night. The Emmanuel Macron government has deployed 45,000 police and several armored vehicles to tackle unrest sparked by an officer's fatal shooting of a teenager, Nahel.
Nahel's death, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism.
As France burns due to violent clashes after a cop shot dead a teen, a video of the country's President chilling at Grammy recipient Elton John's event has sparked anger.
In the video, Macron was seen tapping his foot while the singer performed Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting.
Elton John his partner David Furnish also posted a photo on Instagram showing them meeting with Macron and his wife. "Backstage in Paris," Furnish captioned the post.
In her first media interview since the shooting, the teen's mother, Mounia, told France 5 television: "I don't blame the police, I blame one person: the one who took the life of my son."
She said the 38-year-old officer responsible, who was detained and charged with voluntary manslaughter, "saw an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life".
France captain Kylian Mbappe said, "Violence solves nothing, especially when it inevitably turns against those who are expressing it", on Twitter.
The 24-year-old called for "peaceful and constructive" protests.
"Like all French people, we were marked and shocked by the brutal death of young Nahel. First of all, our thoughts go out to him and his family to whom we extend our sincere condolences.
Obviously, we cannot remain insensitive to the circumstances in which this unacceptable death took place.
Since this tragic event, we have been witnessing the expression of popular anger whose substance we understand, but whose form we cannot endorse. Coming for many of us from working-class neighborhoods, these feelings of pain and sadness, we also share them. But to this suffering is added that of assisting the powerless to a real process of self-destruction. Violence solves nothing, even less when it inevitably and tirelessly turns against those who express it, their families, loved ones, and neighbours.
It is your property that you are destroying, your neighborhoods, your cities, your places of fulfillment and proximity.
In this context of extreme tension, we cannot remain silent and our civic conscience encourages us to call for appeasement, awareness and accountability. That of social actors, parents, big or small brothers and sisters in our neighborhoods, who must work to restore peace to our cities. The "living together" to which we are attached is in danger, and it is the responsibility of all of us to preserve it.
There are other peaceful and constructive ways to express yourself. It is in this that our energies and our reflections must be concentrated.
The time of violence must end to make way for that of mourning, dialogue and reconstruction," Mbappe posted on Twitter.
France residents are witnessing one of the worst riots of the century due to a death of a 17-year-old boy. A French police officer shot the teen, identified by his first name, Nahel over a traffic rule violation. The teen's murder has sparked massive clashes in the country.
Nahel’s burial is scheduled for Saturday, according to Nanterre Mayor Patrick Jarry, who said France needs to “push for changes" in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Hotels and restaurants are facing cancellation due to massive unrest in France after the fatal police shooting of a teenager.
Thierry Marx, president of the main association for hotel and catering industry employers told AFP news agency, "Our hotel members have suffered a wave of cancellations of reservations in all the territories affected by the damage and clashes".
Videos have been uploaded to social media showing an explosion in Marseille, France. In some of the footage, rioters rammed vans at supermarkets, and looted gun and hunting rifles in other places.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to France President Emmanuel Macron regarding the violent clashes that have swept France for the past four nights.
The two leaders also discussed Canada's devastating wildfires, support for Ukraine, and other issues.
France's interior minister, Gérald Darmanin met police who are facing a fourth night of riots. He said as many as 471 people have been arrested in the country. He added that the violence was of “much less intensity" and there were “extremely calm departments".
France has been rocked by a wave of protests after a 17-year-old youth was shot by police near Paris Tuesday, sparking a ban on demonstrations in some cities, travel warnings, and reigniting a debate on overpolicing in marginalized communities.
Scenes of blazed vehicles and the building appeared everywhere in the city while cops fiercely clashed with demonstrators.
France's interior minister said on Friday the coming hours would be decisive as he sent 45,000 police onto the streets following three nights of riots since an officer shot dead a teenager at a traffic stop in a working class suburb of Paris.
The violence, in which buildings and vehicles have been torched and stores looted, has plunged President Emmanuel Macron into the gravest crisis of his leadership since the Yellow Vest protests that started in 2018.
Unrest has flared nationwide, including in cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille as well as Paris where Nahel M., a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot on Tuesday in the Nanterre suburb.
His death, which was caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor, racially mixed, urban communities of police violence and racism.
"The next hours will be decisive and I know I can count on your flawless efforts," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote to firefighters and police officers, seeking to quell the unrest that has been breaking out after nightfall.
He asked local authorities to halt bus and tram traffic from 9 p.m. (1900 GMT) across France and later said 45,000 officers from the police forces would be deployed on Friday evening.
Asked on TF1's main evening television news programme whether the government could declare a state of emergency, Darmanin said: "Quite simply, we're not ruling out any hypothesis and we'll see after tonight what the President of the Republic chooses."
Some 40,000 officers had been deployed on Thursday night. More than 200 of them were injured. Darmanin said more than 900 people were arrested following Thursday's unrest, saying their average age was 17. (Reuters)
The French government said on Friday it would boost nationwide police deployment to 45,000 to contain riots over a teenager's fatal shooting by an officer during a traffic stop, as authorities braced for a fourth consecutive night of protests.
French President Emmanuel Macron said there had been "unacceptable exploitation of a death of an adolescent" in some quarters, after rushing back from an EU summit to chair a crisis meeting.
The unrest was sparked by the killing of 17-year-old Nahel, which revived longstanding grievances about policing and racial profiling in France's low-income and multi-ethnic suburbs.
The tensions have shown no sign of subsiding, with Nahel set to be buried in a ceremony on Saturday, according to the mayor of Nanterre -- the Paris suburb where he lived and was killed. (AFP)
France's interior minister Gerald Darmanin on 30 June asked prefects in the whole country to exceptionally halt public transport with busses and trams from 9pm local time, reported Reuters.
Over 400 people were arrested in the European country on 30 June following protests over the death of 17-year-old Nahel M, who was shot dead by an officer in Nanterre. (AFP)
Authorities arrested 875 people overnight Thursday, mostly teenagers, and are considering all options all they seek to restore order.
Here are some of the areas that were hit hardest:
Paris: A Nike store in central Paris was looted overnight, televised images show, along with outlets on the rue de Rivoli, a main thoroughfare through central Paris that runs past city hall.
Aubervilliers: Twelve buses were incinerated at a depot on the northern edge of Paris, in the Seine-Saint-Denis department. The site is run by transport operator RATP.
Marseille: Protesters targeted the Alcazar library in the center of the Mediterranean city, as well as stores, and set garbage bins on fire. Mayor Benoît Payan called the violence “unacceptable."
Roubaix: In Roubaix, which lies along the Belgian border near Lille, a building that housed an office of technology-services company Tessi was reduced to ashes, Europe 1 reported. La Voix du Nord newspaper said the site employed 500 people. Rioters also targeted a theater and hotel and set fire to cars and garbage bins.
Montreuil: Several stores were vandalized, including a pharmacy and a McDonald’s, in the suburb just east of Paris, Le Monde reported. Cars were set on fire and protesters attempted to set up barricades around the town hall.
Drancy: In Drancy, northeast of Paris, protesters rammed a truck into a shopping center, which they then partly looted and set on fire, Agence France-Presse reported.
(Bloomberg)
French President Emmanuel Macron has said that more police troops will be deployed to control riots. He also called on parents to prevent their children from participating and says video games have 'intoxicated' the rioters.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the government would examine "all options" for restoring order. "The priority is to ensure national unity and the way to do it is to restore order," she later told reporters during a visit to a Paris suburb.
Germany voiced "concern" about recent clashes in France, added there was no indication yet that President Emmanuel Macron would cancel a state visit to the other country.
French President Emmanuel Macron to lead a crisis meeting of ministers on Friday after a third night of protests saw cars torched, shops ransacked and hundreds arrested.
The facade of the Paris aquatic centre where Olympic swimming events will be held in 2024 was damaged during rioting that convulsed France overnight, the company in charge of the Games' infrastructures said on Friday.
"Buses parked near the Aubervilliers aquatic centre construction site were set on fire," SOLIDEO told Reuters. "The facade of the building suffered very slight damage as a result."
SOLIDEO said it was considering taking extra security measures at all Olympic building sites to prevent any further damage, Reuters reported.
The United Nations rights office said on Friday it was concerned by the fatal shooting of a teenager by police that triggered unrest across France, Reuters reported.
"This is a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement," spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said.
"We also emphasize the importance of peaceful assembly. We call on the authorities to ensure use of force by police to address violent elements in demonstrations always respects the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, non-discrimination, precaution and accountability."
France must address deep issues of racist discrimination in its police, the United Nations said Friday, following the fatal shooting of a teenager which has sparked three nights of unrest, AFP reported.
"We are concerned by the killing of a 17-year-old of North African descent by police in France... this is a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement," UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a media briefing in Geneva.
Public transport in Paris was disrupted on Friday after protesters angered by the killing of a teenager by police destroyed a dozen buses in a depot in the north of the French capital overnight, AFP reported.
There was "very significant damage" but no-one was hurt as the buses were torched after Molotov cocktails were hurled overnight into the depot in Aubervilliers north of the centre of Paris, the RATP transport authority said.
"We need to condemn this violence very strongly. Nothing can justify it," Transport Minister Clement Beaune told reporters as he visited the scene, adding that he felt "indignation and disgust, when you see that public services are attacked it can only pile injustice atop injustice".
UN rights office said, “We are concerned by France's fatal shooting, it is a chance to address racism in law enforcement." (Reuters)
President Emmanuel Macron left early from an EU summit in Brussels on Friday to return to France, where three nights of unrest over the police shooting of a teenager have taken place, AFP reported.
Macron cancelled a media conference scheduled for the second and last day of the summit to go back to Paris. He made no comment to reporters as he left.
French President Emmanuel Macron convened his cabinet for a second crisis meeting in two days on Friday, after the most destructive night of nationwide rioting yet in protest at the fatal shooting of a teenager by police, Reuters reported.
Hundreds of police were injured and hundreds of people arrested, authorities said, as rioters clashed with officers in towns and cities across France and buildings and vehicles were torched and stores looted.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who deployed 40,000 officers on Thursday night in a bid to quell a third night of unrest, said on Twitter that police made 667 arrests.
France's president was to lead a crisis meeting of ministers on Friday after a third night of protests over a policeman's killing of a teen saw cars torched, shops ransacked and hundreds arrested, AFP reported.
Police sources said that rather than pitched battles between protesters and police, the night was marked by pillaging of shops, reportedly including flagship branches of Nike and Zara in Paris.
Public buildings were also targeted, with a police station in the Pyrenees city of Pau hit with a Molotov cocktail, according to regional authorities, and an elementary school and a district office set on fire in Lille.
The unrest has come in response to the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Nahel, whose death has revived longstanding grievances about policing and racial profiling in France's low-income and multiethnic suburbs.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said Friday she had gathered ministers at her office to discuss a third night of "unbearable and inexcusable" rioting over a teen's death in a police shooting, AFP reported.
Ahead of an emergency afternoon meeting for which President Emmanuel Macron will rush back from a Brussels EU summit, the government was "getting an update on the violence and abuses overnight," Borne wrote on Twitter, posting pictures with figures including Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti.
In a tweet, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called the violence "intolerable and inexcusable" and reaffirmed her support for police and firefighters who were “bravely carrying out their duties", Reuters reported.
Transport Minister Clement Beaune told RMC radio that public transport in the Paris region would be severely disrupted on Friday and did not rule out an early closure of the network. Twelve buses were set on fire and destroyed overnight in a depot in Aubervilliers, in northern Paris.
Darmanin had deployed 40,000 officers on Thursday night in a bid to quell a third night of unrest, Reuters reported.
At least 667 people were arrested across France overnight, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter on Friday, as rioters clashed with police in several cities, shops and banks were torched and buses overturned.
Macron will cut short a trip to Brussels -- where he is attending a European Union summit -- to chair the 1:00 pm meeting, the second in as many days over the violence, AFP reported citing the Elysee.
Schools, town halls and police stations were targeted by people setting fires, and police used tear gas, water cannons and dispersion grenades against rioters, the spokesperson said, PTI reported.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Friday denounced what he called a night of “rare violence." His office described the arrests as a sharp increase on previous operations as part of an overall government efforts to be “extremely firm" with rioters.
The government has stopped short of declaring a state of emergency — a measure taken to quell weeks of rioting around France that followed the accidental death of two boys fleeing police in 2005.
A third consecutive night of violence in France sparked by the killing of a teenager by a policeman during a traffic stop has left 249 police and gendarmes injured, the interior ministry announced Friday, AFP reported.
None sustained serious injuries, the ministry added. Some 40,000 police had been mobilised nationwide to deal with the violence.
Transport Minister Clement Beaune told RMC radio that public transport in the Paris region would be severely disrupted on Friday and did not rule out an early closure of the network. Twelve buses were set on fire and destroyed overnight in a depot in Aubervilliers, in the north of Paris, Reuters reported.
In Nanterre on Paris's western outskirts, protesters torched cars, barricaded streets and hurled projectiles at police following an earlier peaceful vigil held to pay tribute to the dead boy.
In central Paris, a Nike shoe store was broken into, and several people were arrested after store windows were smashed along the Rue de Rivoli shopping street, Paris police said.
Nahel was killed as he pulled away from police who were trying to stop him for a traffic infraction.
A video, authenticated by AFP, showed two police officers standing by the side of the stationary car, with one pointing a weapon at the driver.
A voice is heard saying: "You are going to get a bullet in the head."
The police officer then appears to fire as the car abruptly drives off.
Clashes first erupted as the video emerged, contradicting police accounts that the teenager was driving at the officer.
The officer's lawyer, Laurent-Franck Lienard, told BFMTV late Thursday that his client had apologised as he was taken into custody.
"The first words he pronounced were to say sorry, and the last words he said were to say sorry to the family," Lienard said. (AFP)
"Last night, our police, gendarmes and firefighters again courageously confronted rare violence. In line with my firm instructions, they made 667 arrests," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on Twitter, AFP reported.
French President Emmanuel Macron will hold a new government emergency meeting later on Friday after riots erupted for the third night in a row across the country in protest over the deadly shooting of a teen by police earlier in the week, reported BFM TV, citing the Elysee palace, Reuters reported.
The meeting will take place at 1100 GMT, added BFM TV.
Some 421 people were arrested throughout France on Thursday evening, several French media said, citing Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who had deployed 40,000 police officers on Thursday night in a bid to quell the widespread unrest.
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