PARIS—Protests over the fatal police shooting of a teenager rocked France for a third straight night on Thursday, with cars burned, buildings vandalised and hundreds arrested in cities across the country.
The nighttime unrest followed a march earlier on Thursday in memory of the 17-year-old, named Nahel, whose death has revived longstanding grievances about policing and racial profiling in France’s low-income and multiethnic suburbs.
An internal security note indicated authorities were expecting a “theatre of urban violence”, with around 40,000 police and gendarmes—along with elite Raid and GIGN units—deployed in several cities.
At least three cities around Paris had issued curfews, while bans on public gatherings were instated and helicopters and drones mobilised in the neighbouring cities of Lille and Tourcoing in the country’s north.
Despite the massive security deployment, violence and damage were reported in multiple areas. As of around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) on Friday, at least 421 people had been arrested across the country over the course of the night, according to the team of Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.
“There aren’t any very violent confrontations in direct contact with the police, but there are a number of vandalised stores, looted or even burned businesses,” a senior national police officer said.
Public buildings were also targeted, with a police station in the Pyrenees city of Pau hit with a Molotov cocktail, according to regional authorities.
An Arab face’
France has been rocked by successive nights of protests since Nahel was shot point-blank on Tuesday during a traffic stop captured on video.
In her first media interview since the shooting, Nahel’s mother, Mounia, told the France 5 channel: “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 on Thursday, “saw an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life”.
The memorial march for Nahel, led by Mounia, ended with riot police firing tear gas as several cars were set alight in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre, where the teenager lived and was killed.
Cars, bins, schools and government offices were torched Wednesday night around Paris and in other cities, while some 150 people were arrested nationwide.
As part of measures to restore calm on Thursday, Paris bus and tram services were halted after 9:00 pm (1900 GMT), the region’s president said.
But the measures and heightened security appeared to do little to deter unrest on Thursday night.
In the city centre of Marseille, a library was vandalised, according to local officials, and scuffles broke out nearby when police used tear gas to disperse a group of 100 to 150 people who allegedly tried to set up barricades.
Multiple public buildings were also targeted in Seine-Saint-Denis, in the Paris metro area, according to a police source.
In Nanterre, the epicentre of the unrest, tensions rose around midnight, with fireworks set off in the Pablo Picasso district, where Nahel had lived, according to an AFP journalist.
President Emmanuel Macron has called for calm and said the protest violence was “unjustifiable”.
The riots are a fresh challenge for Macron, who had been looking to move past some of the biggest demonstrations in a generation sparked by a controversial rise in the retirement age.
– ‘Bullet in the head’ –
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,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday, Nanterre public prosecutor Pascal Prache had said: “The prosecution considers that the legal conditions for the use of the weapon” by the police officer who fired the shot “are not met”.
– ‘Ingredients for an explosion’ –
The government is desperate to avoid a repeat of 2005 urban riots, sparked by the death of two boys of African origin in a police chase, during which 6,000 people were arrested.
“There are all the ingredients for another explosion potentially,” one government adviser told AFP on condition of anonymity on Wednesday.
The head of the right-wing Republicans, Eric Ciotti, called for a state of emergency, which would allow local authorities to create no-go areas, but a government source told AFP that option was not currently on the table.
Concern about the police using their weapons to stop drivers who refused to stop for traffic checks has been growing.
Last year, 13 people were killed after refusing to stop for police traffic checks, with a law change in 2017 that gave officers greater powers to use their weapons now under scrutiny.
“What I see on this video is the execution by police of a 17-year-old kid, in France, in 2023, in broad daylight,” said Greens party leader Marine Tondelier.
