Fourth night of unrest hits major French cities; hundreds arrested, more than 200 police injured
Paris: France deployed 45,000 police officers and some armoured vehicles on the streets on Saturday, July 1, as riots rocked French cities for a fourth night over a teenager’s fatal shooting by an officer during a traffic stop., a Reuters report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says
Buildings and vehicles have been torched and stores looted, and the violence has plunged President Emmanuel Macron into the gravest crisis of his leadership since the Yellow Vest protests that started in 2018.
There has been a marked surge in nationwide unrest, 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, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said early on Saturday that 270 people had been arrested on Friday night, bringing the total to more than 1,100 since the unrest began
Friday night’s arrests included 80 people in the southern city of Marseille, France’s second-largest and home to many people of North African descent.
Social media images showed an explosion rocking Marseille’s old port area. City authorities said they were investigating the cause but did not believe there were any casualties.
His death, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism.
Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan called on the national government to immediately send additional troops. “The scenes of pillaging and violence are unacceptable,” he said in a tweet late on Friday.
Three police officers were slightly wounded early on Saturday. A police helicopter flew overhead.
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