PARIS: The grandmother of the teenager shot dead by police during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb said she wanted the nationwide rioting triggered by his killing to end, as France braced for a potential sixth night of unrest.
Nahel’s grandmother, identified as Nadia by French media, said the rioters were using the 17-year-old’s death as an excuse to cause havoc and that the family wanted calm. “I’m telling them to stop,” she told local media.”Nahel is dead. My daughter is lost … she doesn’t have a life anymore.”
Asked about a crowdfunding campaign that had received pledges of more than 670,000 euros ($731,000) for the police officer charged with voluntary homicide over the shooting, Nadia said, “My heart aches.”
Interior Minister Gerald Darmnin said around 45,000 police were deployed again on Sunday night to deter rioters who have torched cars, looted stores and targeted town halls and police stations including the home of the mayor of a Paris suburb, which was attacked while his wife and children were asleep inside.
President Emmanuel Macron postponed a state visit to Germany to deal with the crisis. He was due to meet with leaders of parliament on Monday and with more than 220 mayors of towns and cities that have been affected by riots on Tuesday.
The interior ministry reported 719 arrests following Saturday’s funeral for Nahel in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, down from 1,311 on Friday night and 875 on Thursday night. Officials cautioned it was too early to say the unrest was over. “There was evidently less damage but we will remain mobilised in the coming days. We are very focused, nobody is claiming victory,” Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said.
The riots amount to the worst crisis for Macron since the ‘Yellow Vest’ protests gripped much of France in late 2018. In mid-April, Macron gave himself 100 days to bring reconciliation and unity to a divided country after rolling strikes and protests over his raising of the retirement age, which he had promised in his election campaign.
Nahel’s death has fed longstanding complaints of discrimination, police violence and systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies – denied by authorities – from rights groups and within the low-income, racially mixed suburbs that ring major French cities.
The officer involved has acknowledged firing a lethal shot, the state prosecutor says, telling investigators he wanted to prevent a dangerous police chase. His lawyer Laurent-Franck Lienard has said he did not intend to kill the teenager.
The biggest overnight flashpoint was Marseille, where police fired teargas and fought street battles with youths around the city centre late into the night. There was also unrest in Paris, in the Riviera city of Nice and in Strasbourg in the east.
In Paris, shop facades on the popular Avenue des Champs-Elysees were boarded up overnight, and there were sporadic clashes elsewhere. Police said six public buildings were damaged and five officers wounded.
In the Paris region, the home of the conservative mayor of L’Hay-les-Roses, Vincent Jeanbrun, was rammed with a vehicle, and his wife and children were attacked with fireworks as they escaped.
