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A march in Paris on Thursday, raising the slogan “Justice for Nael”.
June 29, 2023, 08:46 GMT
Last updated 1 hour ago
The French government announced the deployment of 40,000 police officers on Thursday evening across the country, including 5,000 in Paris and its nearby suburbs, to counter possible riots linked to the killing of a teenager, who was shot by a policeman on Tuesday.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that the number of security forces will be “four times more” than it was in the past two nights, which witnessed an escalation in riots and vandalism and its spread to several other cities in France.
French President Emmanuel Macron had considered that the clashes, which took place during the night, in which cars were burned and police were attacked with fireworks, in the wake of the killing of a teenager by police bullets, were “unjustified.”
“The past few hours were marked by scenes of violence against police stations, schools and municipal halls… and against institutions and the Republic,” Macron said Thursday, addressing a meeting of ministers at the Ministry of the Interior, adding that “these attacks are not justified at all.”
Riots broke out on Wednesday evening for the second night in a row in France to protest the killing of the boy at a traffic checkpoint, while thousands of security personnel were deployed to prevent the expansion of violent protests.
The Interior Ministry said security forces arrested 150 people on Wednesday night, describing the protests as “unbearable”.
“A night of intolerable violence against the symbols of the Republic, with town halls, schools and police stations set on fire or attacked,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in a tweet.
He expressed his support for the police. He added: “Shame on those who did not call for calm.”
About two thousand riot police were summoned to the outskirts of Paris in the aftermath of the killing of the young man, Nael M. The 17-year-old was shot in the chest by a policeman at close range on Tuesday morning.
The incident caused confrontations between the police and demonstrators who set fires in the suburbs of Paris on Tuesday night, as the Interior Ministry announced the arrest of 31 people, the injury of 24 policemen with minor injuries, and the burning of about 40 cars.
On Wednesday night, garbage containers continued to be set on fire and fireworks were fired in the suburb of Nanterre, west of Paris, where the young man was killed, in addition to other neighborhoods in the Au du Seine region, west of the capital, and in the city of Dijon, east of Paris.
Police said a group of people set fire to a bus after all its passengers got off in the suburb of Esson, south of the capital.
In the southern city of Toulouse, several cars were set on fire and petrol bombs were thrown at police and firefighters as thick black smoke billowed into the sky.
And the police announced just before midnight that they had arrested about 16 people across the country.
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A burning train carriage in the suburb of Clamant, southwest of Paris, as a result of the violence that took place in the suburb last night
The killing of the boy, Nael, drew criticism from various social strata. MPs and ministers observed a minute of silence in the National Assembly to pay tribute to his spirit.
Macron had expressed his “affected” by the boy’s death, according to government spokesman Olivier Veran, who called for “calm”.
The French government usually seeks to avoid the outbreak of riots in the suburbs of Paris, after it caused the death of teenagers in recent years, who often came from immigrant families from the Maghreb or Africa.
The killing of Nael took place on Tuesday morning, behind the La Défense neighborhood near Paris, when he did not comply with the order to stop at a checkpoint and tried to bypass it.
Police sources said, at first, that the young man drove his car towards two policemen on two motorcycles “to try to run them over.”
But a video clip spread on social media and verified by Agence France-Presse showed two policemen trying to stop the car, before one of them shot through the window at the driver when he tried to drive off.
A person was heard saying, “You will receive a bullet in the head,” without revealing his identity.
The car later crashed into a side wall after traveling a short distance forward.
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2023-06-29 13:52:30
