Riots and protests are raging in France for the second day after the police shot dead a 17-year-old, and at least 150 people have been arrested, the BBC writes.
Schools, municipal buildings and police stations have been set on fire in Paris, and French President Emmanuel Macron has said that the riots are inexcusable. He called a meeting of the crisis council.
Riots erupted after police shot dead a young man at close range during the traffic check. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin
condemned the growing unrest and said that France had experienced a night full of intolerable violence.
Riots took place in all the suburbs of Paris, but the most violent clashes occurred in Nanterre, where a teenager was killed. The newspaper Le Monde reported that local authorities were forced to partially evacuate.
In the northern French city of Lille, protesters burned chairs and documents in the town hall. In Rennes, about 300 people had gathered to commemorate the dead young man, and some started arson and were dispersed.
On Tuesday, the 27th of June, Macron said that the shooting of the teenager was “unforgivable”.
However, the president’s remarks drew the ire of police forces,
who accused Macron of hastily prosecuting the officers involved. The police union Alliance Police has said that police officers are innocent until proven guilty, and the Unité SGP Police union has also cited political interference in fueling hostility towards the police.
Darmanin has announced that he will open a case against another union – France Police – after it allegedly published an unacceptable post on Twitter, justifying the killing of the teenager. In the now-deleted post, the police officers were praised, and the teenager’s death was blamed on his parents, who were not able to educate their son.
The young man’s mother said the police had taken her child away and called on people to march in her son’s memory. The police officer who fired the fatal shot is currently in custody.
Nahel is said to be from a French-Algerian family and is the second person this year to be killed during traffic control raids.
Last year, 13 people died in this way. Human rights organizations criticize the changes in the law made in 2017, which expanded the number of cases when the police can use firearms. Le Monde cites official statistics and points out that since the change was adopted, cases of police shooting at vehicles have become much more frequent.
The news agency Reuters has found that the majority of victims when police use firearms during traffic checks are black or Arab.
According to the information available to the French media, the police initially reported that the teenager tried to run over the policemen. However, a video found on the Internet shows a policeman aiming a gun through the car window and firing when the young man tried to drive away. There were two other people in the car at the time. One managed to escape, while the other, also a minor, was detained.
Macron told reporters: “Nothing justifies the death of a young person.”
The President called for peace so that justice could be achieved.
The authorities have opened two separate cases: one for the alleged murder of the official, and one for the alleged planned murder of the official by the driver.
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