2023-06-30 19:51:16
French police began clearing the famous Place de la Concorde in central Paris of protesters on Friday, following a demonstration began there without prior planning, amid unrest across the country sparked by the shooting death of a young man.
“An evacuation operation is underway at the Place de la Concorde,” the police added in a statement.
On Friday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanan announced the reinforcement of the deployment of security forces throughout the country and the mobilization of 45,000 police and gendarmerie in anticipation of a fourth night of riots.
As part of its endeavor to contain the riots and vandalism, the French government allowed the gendarmerie to take armored vehicles onto the streets, without going as far as declaring a state of emergency.
The government told all local authorities to halt public transport early Friday in a desperate attempt to restore order following rioters set several buildings and cars on fire in a third night of unrest.
Violence erupted in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse, Lille and some parts of the Paris region, including working-class Nanterre, where 17-year-old Nael Marzouki, of Algerian-Moroccan origin, was shot dead by police on Tuesday.
His death, caught on camera at a traffic light, has rekindled longstanding complaints from low-income, mixed-race and urban communities that police violence and systemic racism within law enforcement.
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Record number of arrests
The number of arrests in France hit a new record of 73,699 by June 1, an increase of more than 500 from the previous month, according to figures published by the Ministry of Justice on Friday.
This is the third time in 2023 that the number of detainees reached a record following the first of April and the first of May, and the fifth since November.
The number of those arrested on May 1 was 73,162.
France.. Escalation of confrontations between demonstrators and police officers
France.. Escalation of confrontations between demonstrators and police officers
A young man dies during a riot
A young man in his twenties died on Friday followingnoon in northwest France of injuries he sustained when he fell at dawn from the roof of a store during the riots, according to identical sources.
A police source told AFP that the young man fell from the roof of a supermarket in Petit-Quivier, in the Rouen suburb of Seine-Maritime, “during a looting operation.”
But the public prosecutor’s office in Rouen said that this store “was not attacked by rioters during these incidents.”
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The security directorate in the region said in a statement that at around five o’clock on Friday morning, the young man, accompanied by another young man, climbed to the roof of a commercial center that includes a number of closed shops.
She added that he fell from the roof and sustained serious injuries, following which he was taken to hospital.
On Friday followingnoon, Frédéric Thiers, the public prosecutor in Rouen, announced that the young man had died of his injuries.
The public prosecutor said in a statement, “The second young man who was arrested explained that they climbed to the roof at around five in the morning in an attempt to enter the store to retrieve something they left inside (it was not immediately clear what it was).”
On the night of Thursday-Friday, the city of Rouen witnessed riots, during which regarding thirty people threw projectiles at the police, set fire to garbage containers, and vandalized bus stops.
On Friday, a kindergarten in the city was closed following a fire destroyed a number of its halls.
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