Pressure piles on Macron as French protesters set fires, loot stores

A demonstrator runs on the third night of protests sparked by the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old driver in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, France, Friday, June 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Young protesters have clashed with police and looted stores in a fourth day of violence in France triggered by the deadly police shooting of a teen, piling more pressure on President Emmanuel Macron after he appealed to parents to keep children off the streets and blamed social media for fueling unrest.

Despite repeated government appeals for calm and stiffer policing, Friday saw brazen daylight violence, too.

An Apple store was looted in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where police fired tear gas, and the windows of a fast-food outlet were smashed in a Paris-area shopping mall, where officers repelled people trying to break into a shuttered store, authorities said.

The southern port city of Marseille, initially spared the violence that broke out first in the Paris region, was experiencing its second night of upheaval.

Even before nightfall, young people hurled projectiles, set fires, and looted shops, police said. They made almost 90 arrests.

On Friday evening, looters broke into a Marseille gun shop and made off with weapons, and a man was later arrested with a hunting rifle, police said.

The previous night, two off-duty officers suffered serious injuries, including one who was stabbed, when they were set upon by about 20 people, police said.

Authorities in the city of Lyon reported rioters again setting fires and pelting police in the suburbs.

In the city centre, police made 21 arrests to stop the attempted looting of shops after an unauthorised protest against police violence that drew about 1,300 people on Friday evening.

The unrest was sparked by the killing of 17-year-old Nahel, which revived longstanding grievances about policing and racial profiling in France's low-income and multi-ethnic suburbs.

In her first media interview since the shooting, Nahel's mother, Mounia, told France 5 television: "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".

Nahel's burial is scheduled for Saturday, according to Nanterre Mayor Patrick Jarry, who said France needs to "push for changes" in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

Spillovers elsewhere

Violence was also erupting in some of France's overseas territories.

In French Guiana, a 54-year-old was killed by a stray bullet on Thursday night when protesters fired at police in the capital, Cayenne, authorities said.

On the small Indian Ocean island of Reunion, protesters set garbage bins ablaze, thrown projectiles at police, and damaged cars and buildings, officials said in a statement.

To maintain security, 150 officers will be deployed on Friday night and through the weekend, officials said.

In Belgium, police made 63 arrests so far, 48 of which are minors.

Demonstrations late on Thursday in central Brussels saw protesters smash windows at bus stops and set vehicles on fire.

There were also protests in Lemonnier that prompted the closure of the Anneessens metro station.

Macron zeros in on social media

In the face of an escalating crisis that hundreds of arrests and massive police deployments have failed to quell, Macron held off on declaring a state of emergency, an option that was used in similar circumstances in 2005.

Instead, his government ratcheted up its law enforcement response.

Already massively beefed-up police forces were boosted by another 5,000 officers for Friday night, increasing the number to 45,000 overall, the interior minister said.

Some were called back from vacation.

The minister, Gerald Darmanin, said police made 917 arrests on Thursday alone and noted their young age — 17 on average.

He said more than 300 police officers and firefighters have been injured.

Macron, too, zeroed in on social media platforms that have relayed dramatic images of cars and buildings being torched and other acts of violence, saying they are playing a "considerable role" in the violence.

The unrest comes just over a year before Paris, and other French cities rattled by violence are due to host 10,500 Olympians and millions of visitors for the Summer Olympic Games.

The Paris 2024 organising committee said it was closely monitoring the situation and that preparations for the Olympics continued.

Source: TRT