“They are backing off! Let’s go guys, let’s move on, to death the cops! “: until late in the night from Wednesday to Thursday, hundreds of rioters again clashed with the police in the west of Paris, where Nahel, 17, was killed by a policeman after refusing to comply.
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Before sunset, the situation was calm on Nanterre. In this town in the Hauts-de-Seine department where Nahel was shot and killed on Tuesday, men and women of all ages walked quietly in ceremonial dress for the Muslim festival of Aïd-el-Kébir.
Before being replaced at nightfall by young people dressed in black, their faces hidden under a hood or a scarf. It was in the Vieux-Pont district, in the west of the city, that the first scuffles broke out, at least two cars being set on fire before a rapid return to calm.
But the heart of the riots was in the Pablo-Picasso district (east), a set of winding alleys intertwining around the famous “Cloud towers”, buildings from the 1970s mixing rounded and straight lines designed by the French architect Emile Aillaud .
Garbage cans and street furniture burn on the road. Thick black smoke rises. Well-organized groups of young people watch the entrances to the area, criss-crossed by scooters with camouflaged license plates, in search of the police.
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AFP
Inside the district, where there is an acrid smell of burning, several hundred young rioters confront the police with firecrackers and fireworks.
The security forces remain cautiously at a distance, responding mainly with tear gas canisters and a few charges which are enough for the rioters to disperse briefly.
It is avenue Pablo-Picasso, the artery that crosses the district, that the clashes are the most intense. Crisscrossed by the police, the street reveals seven charred cars ending in flames.
As soon as the order to retreat was given, several hundred young people reinvested the route, quickly erecting a makeshift barricade with construction barriers. Two new cars are set on fire.
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AFP
Around each riot scene, the same picture: local residents come to film with their mobile phones and comment on the scene live, without participating or condemning it.
Photographers and videographers are not welcome and young people have insistently asked AFP journalists with cameras to leave the area.
In the neighboring town of Puteaux, at the foot of the business district of La Défense, a group of a dozen young people, taking advantage of the chaos, also violently attacked and punched in the face a man who was passing by with his wife, leaving him bleeding.
Written press journalists are tolerated after checking their press card. “You are just passing through. We are there all year round”, slips a young person, before affirming: “Tonight, we are here for Nahel”.
On a wall, a huge tag announces “27.06.2023 Beginning of the war!!! A good cop is a dead cop” then “Justice for Nahel”, while the game of cat and mouse continues.
According to a police source, the Pablo-Picasso district was where the riots were concentrated in Nanterre.
But clashes erupted throughout the Paris region, revealing from the highway that surrounds the capital clouds of thick black smoke, explosions of fireworks dominating the bars of buildings and countless fire trucks and police vehicles rushing all screaming sirens.
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