PARIS: French authorities deployed reinforcements to flashpoint cities on Saturday, making hundreds of arrests on the fifth night of unrest sparked by the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old who was laid to rest.
A total of 322 people had been arrested across France as of Sunday, the interior ministry said, though the level of violence appeared to have declined since rioting first broke out over the death of Nahel in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin had told reporters earlier that 45,000 members of the security forces would be deployed overnight Saturday to Sunday – the same number as the night before. Extra forces and equipment were sent to Lyon, Grenoble and Marseille, which had previously seen intense rioting.
In Paris and its nearby regions, where around 7,000 officers were out in force, 126 people had been arrested on Sunday. In Marseille, police dispersed groups of youths Saturday evening at Canebiere, the main avenue running through the centre of the city. By midnight, the authorities in Lyon and Marseille were reporting fewer incidents than the previous night, with 56 and 21 people arrested in the two cities, respectively.
A number of towns have imposed overnight curfews. The protests over the death of the teen, who was of Algerian origin, have again exposed the severe racial tensions in modern France, increasing scrutiny on the police, who have long been accused of singling out minorities.
The crisis is a hugely unwelcome development for President Emmanuel Macron, who was looking forward to pressing on with his second mandate after seeing off months of protests that erupted in January over raising the pensions age. In a sign of the seriousness of the crisis, he postponed a state visit to Germany scheduled to begin Sunday.
Nahel’s funeral ceremony was held on Saturday in Nanterre, where he lived, with hundreds gathering peacefully along with his mother and grandmother. A ceremony took place in the early afternoon at the mosque in Nanterre, and he was interred in the giant Mont Valerien cemetery in the area.
In a bid to limit the violence, buses and trams in France have stopped running after 9 pm and the sale of large fireworks and inflammable liquids has been banned. The southern port city of Marseille has been the scene of clashes and looting from the centre and further north in the long-neglected low-income neighbourhoods.
Authorities there went a step further by halting all urban transport from 6pm, including metros, and banning all protests up until Sunday. Police reinforcements have been sent to the city, including armoured vehicles and two helicopters.
Macron has urged parents to take responsibility for underage rioters, one-third of whom were “young or very young”. Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said that 30 percent of those arrested were minors, while Darmanin said the average age of those arrested was just 17.
A 38-year-old policeman has been charged with voluntary homicide over Nahel’s death and has been remanded in custody. The UN rights office said the killing of the teen of North African descent was “a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement”.
