Emmanuel Macron will chair a government crisis meeting on Wednesday morning after a second night of protests over the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old boy at a traffic stop brought unrest and rioting across France.
At least 150 people were arrested in what the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, called “a night of unbearable violence against the symbols of the republic: town halls, schools, police stations burned or attacked.”
Protesters launched fireworks at police, set cars ablaze and torched public buildings in towns in the suburbs around Paris, but also in the city of Toulouse in the south-west and towns across the north. There were also disturbances in Amiens, Dijon and St Etienne, and outside Lyon.
Around Lille, in Villeurbanne, Vénissieux and Bron local media reported burning barricades made of blazing bins and rental scooters. The town hall in Garges-lés-Gonesse outside Paris was set alight in an arson attack and in Mons-en-Barœul in northern France, the town-hall was torched and the mayor said several services were had been “totally destroyed”. In Clamart, outside Paris, a tram was burned. Several police stations were attacked in towns around Paris, including in Trappes, Gennevilliers and Meudon.
About 2,000 riot police were deployed in and around Paris on Wednesday night as protesters launched fireworks at police and set fire to in the town of Nanterre, outside the capital, where the 17-year-old boy, Nahel, was shot dead at close range during a traffic stop on Tuesday. Police appeared at first to have lied about the circumstances of the killing.
French media reported incidents in numerous locations across the greater Paris region. Videos on social media showed dozens of fireworks being directed at the Montreuil town hall, on the eastern edge of Paris.
Politicians were concerned that sustained rioting and unrest across France could be hard to contain. In 2005 the death of two young boys hiding from police in an electricity substation in Clichy-sous-Bois outside Paris triggered weeks of unrest, with France declaring a state of national emergency as more than 9,000 vehicles and dozens of public buildings and businesses were set on fire.
The use of lethal force by officers against Nahel, who was of north African origin, has fed into a deep-rooted perception of police brutality in the ethnically diverse areas of France’s biggest cities.
“We are sick of being treated like this. This is for Nahel, we are Nahel,” said two young men calling themselves “avengers” as they wheeled rubbish bins from a nearby estate to add to a burning barricade. One said his family had lived in France for three generations but “they are never going to accept us”.
In the 18th and 19th districts of north-eastern Paris, police fired flash-balls to disperse protesters who were burning rubbish. The crowd responded by throwing bottles.
In the Essonne region, south of the capital, a bus was set on fire after all the passengers were forced off, police said
In Toulouse, several cars were torched and responding police and firefighters pelted with projectiles.
Earlier, President Emmanuel Macron called for calm and told reporters: “We have an adolescent that was killed, it is unexplainable and inexcusable. Nothing justifies the death of a young man.” His remarks were unusually frank in a country where senior politicians are often reticent to criticise police given voters’ security concerns.
The teenager had been driving a car on Tuesday morning when he was pulled over for breaking traffic rules, prosecutors said.
Police initially reported that one officer had shot at the teenager because he was driving his car at him. But this version of events was quickly contradicted by a video circulating on social media that was authenticated by French news agencies.
A police officer is now being investigated for voluntary homicide for shooting the youth, and France’s human rights ombudsman has opened an inquiry.
Rights groups allege systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies in France, a charge Macron has previously denied.
Yassine Bouzrou, a lawyer for the boy’s family, said: “You have a video that is very clear: a police officer killed a young man of 17 years. You can see that the shooting is not within the rules.” The family has filed a legal complaint against the officers for homicide, complicity in homicide and false testimony, the lawyer said.
Lawmakers held a minute’s silence in the National Assembly, where the prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, said the shooting “seems clearly not to comply with the rules”.
In a video shared on TikTok, a woman identified as the victim’s mother called for a memorial march in Nanterre on Thursday. “Everyone come, we will lead a revolt for my son,” she said.
Tuesday’s killing was the third fatal shooting during traffic stops in France so far in 2023. Last year there were a record 13 such shootings, a spokesperson for the national police said.
There were three such killings in 2021 and two in 2020, according to a Reuters tally, which shows the majority of victims since 2017 were Black or of Arab origin.
Two leading police unions fought back against the criticism, saying the detained police officer should be presumed innocent until found otherwise.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
