Riots in France continue to spread

2023-06-29 23:29:29

In the greater Paris area and several other French cities, following the death of a young person during a police check on Friday night, there were renewed clashes between a massive police force and demonstrators. As Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced during the night, there were more than 100 arrests. Officials were confronted with incidents in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse and Lille, the national police said on Thursday.

“The state’s response must be extremely decisive,” Darmanin said in the northern town of Mons-en-Baroeul, where several municipal buildings were set on fire. In Marseille, shops were looted and 14 people arrested. Police fired tear gas when clashes broke out with youths, reports La Provence newspaper.

It’s the third night of riots in a row. Nationwide, 40,000 police officers are on duty, around four times as many as on Wednesday evening. There have been no buses and trams in the Paris region since Thursday evening, and in Clamart, eight kilometers from the center of Paris, there is a night curfew until Monday.

In Nanterre near Paris, where the 17-year-old died on Tuesday, a bank branch was set on fire on Thursday evening, with the flames spreading to a residential building above. The fire brigade extinguished the fire without harming anyone.

Following a funeral march for the youth who was shot in Nanterre, there were already clashes between protesters and the police there on Thursday evening. Molotov cocktails were thrown at the officers, the police monitored the situation with helicopters and called in special forces, and 19 people were arrested.

Special police units were deployed in Lille, Lyon and Bordeaux. In Grenoble, a bus was shot at with firecrackers and the workers of the transport company stopped work.

Meanwhile, there have also been clashes between young people and law enforcement officers in Belgium’s capital, Brussels. About ten people were arrested, the police said on Thursday evening. Young people had played a cat-and-mouse game with the law enforcement officers, and there had been several fires.

As the Brussels transport company announced on Twitter, part of the local public transport was discontinued. Belgian media showed images of a burning car and police officers in riot gear. According to the police, young people called on social networks on Thursday to gather in response to the 17-year-old’s death in France. According to the Belgian news agency Belga, there were tensions especially around the centrally located district of Anneessens.

A motorcycle patrol stopped the 17-year-old at the wheel of a car in Nanterre on Tuesday morning. When the young man suddenly drove off, the deadly shot fell from the police officer’s service weapon. A formal investigation into manslaughter was initiated once morest the officer on Thursday, and he was taken into custody. The use of the weapon in the control was not justified, the prosecutor said.

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