{"id":35509,"date":"2023-06-29T08:00:58","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T08:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=35509"},"modified":"2026-07-05T17:43:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T17:43:30","slug":"french-police-shooting-150-arrests-as-protests-widen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/06\/29\/french-police-shooting-150-arrests-as-protests-widen\/","title":{"rendered":"French Police Shooting: 150 arrests as protests widen\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Emmanuel Macron will chair a government crisis meeting on Thursday morning after a second night of protests over the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old boy at a traffic stop brought unrest and rioting across France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least 150 people were arrested in what the interior minister, G\u00e9rald Darmanin, called \u201ca night of unbearable violence against the symbols of the republic: town halls, schools, police stations burned or attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protesters launched fireworks at police, set cars ablaze and torched public buildings in towns in the suburbs around Paris, but also in the city of Toulouse in the south-west and towns across the north. There were also disturbances in Amiens, Dijon and St Etienne, and outside Lyon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around Lille, in Villeurbanne, V\u00e9nissieux and Bron local media reported burning barricades made of blazing bins and rental scooters. The town hall in Garges-l\u00e9s-Gonesse outside Paris was set alight in an arson attack and in Mons-en-Bar\u0153ul in northern\u00a0France, the town-hall was torched and the mayor said several services were had been \u201ctotally destroyed\u201d. In Clamart, outside Paris, a tram was burned. Several police stations were attacked in towns around Paris, including in Trappes, Gennevilliers and Meudon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 2,000 riot police were deployed in and around Paris on Wednesday night as protesters launched fireworks at police and set fire to in the town of Nanterre, outside the capital, where the 17-year-old boy, Nahel, was shot dead at close range during a traffic stop on Tuesday. Police appeared at first to have lied about the circumstances of the killing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French media reported incidents in numerous locations across the greater Paris region. Videos on social media showed dozens of fireworks being directed at the Montreuil town hall, on the eastern edge of Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politicians were concerned that sustained rioting and unrest across France could be hard to contain. In 2005\u00a0the death of two young boys hiding from police in an electricity substation\u00a0in Clichy-sous-Bois outside Paris triggered weeks of unrest, with France declaring a state of national emergency as more than 9,000 vehicles and dozens of public buildings and businesses were set on fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Firefighters<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The use of lethal force by officers against Nahel, who was of north African origin, has fed into a deep-rooted perception of police brutality in the ethnically diverse areas of France\u2019s biggest cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are sick of being treated like this. This is for Nahel, we are Nahel,\u201d said two young men calling themselves \u201cavengers\u201d as they wheeled rubbish bins from a nearby estate to add to a burning barricade. One said his family had lived in France for three generations but \u201cthey are never going to accept us\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Interior
The interior minister, G\u00e9rald Darmanin, said 2,000 police would be out on the streets on Wednesday in the Paris region and around other big cities to \u2018maintain order\u2019. Photograph: Christophe Ena\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the 18th and 19th districts of north-eastern Paris, police fired flash-balls to disperse protesters who were burning rubbish. The crowd responded by throwing bottles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Essonne region, south of the capital, a bus was set on fire after all the passengers were forced off, police said<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Toulouse, several cars were torched and responding police and firefighters pelted with projectiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier, President Emmanuel Macron called for calm and told reporters: \u201cWe have an adolescent that was killed, it is unexplainable and inexcusable. Nothing justifies the death of a young man.\u201d His remarks were unusually frank in a country where senior politicians are often reticent to criticise police given voters\u2019 security concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The teenager had been driving a car on Tuesday morning when he was pulled over for breaking traffic rules, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police initially reported that one officer had shot at the teenager because he was driving his car at him. But this version of events was quickly contradicted by a video circulating on social media that was authenticated by French news agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A police officer is now being investigated for voluntary homicide for shooting the youth, and France\u2019s human rights ombudsman has opened an inquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rights groups allege systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies in France, a charge Macron has previously denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yassine Bouzrou, a lawyer for the boy\u2019s family, said: \u201cYou have a video that is very clear: a police officer killed a young man of 17 years. You can see that the shooting is not within the rules.\u201d The family has filed a legal complaint against the officers for homicide, complicity in homicide and false testimony, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawmakers held a minute\u2019s silence in the National Assembly, where the prime minister, \u00c9lisabeth Borne, said the shooting \u201cseems clearly not to comply with the rules\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a video shared on TikTok, a woman identified as the victim\u2019s mother called for a memorial march in Nanterre on Thursday. \u201cEveryone come, we will lead a revolt for my son,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday\u2019s killing was the third fatal shooting during traffic stops in France so far in 2023. Last year there were a record 13 such shootings, a spokesperson for the national police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were three such killings in 2021 and two in 2020, according to a Reuters tally, which shows the majority of victims since 2017 were Black or of Arab origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two leading police unions fought back against the criticism, saying the detained police officer should be presumed innocent until found otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emmanuel Macron will chair a government crisis meeting on Thursday morning after a second night of protests over the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old boy at a traffic stop brought unrest and rioting across France. At least 150 people were arrested in what the interior minister, G\u00e9rald Darmanin, called \u201ca night of unbearable violence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4899,5569,6975,11192,5304,9211,6573,11183,7927,10446,5719,11583,13175,5520,9331,11381,8440,9171,6083,7234,9387,7178,5800,524,5455,9883,6159,11638,5575,6351,12281,9407,2264,10840,11166,9515,10454,10342,10776,3874,7699,414,11743,5331,9833,12309,7155,7964,11973,1253,421,7745,8247,11698,3805,3174,5561,11171,504,10878,13235,8810,5655,11259,9253,5349,7592,5594,5909,6348,9539,8033,3954,5273,594,5140,5784],"class_list":["post-35509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-african","tag-arab","tag-arrest","tag-arson","tag-attack","tag-avengers","tag-black","tag-boys","tag-brutality","tag-burning","tag-bus","tag-capital","tag-car","tag-cars","tag-city","tag-complaint","tag-crisis","tag-crowd","tag-dead","tag-death","tag-detained","tag-disturbances","tag-electricity","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-family","tag-fed","tag-fire","tag-forced","tag-france","tag-french","tag-french-police","tag-french-president-emmanuel-macron","tag-government","tag-human-rights","tag-innocent","tag-killed","tag-killing","tag-law","tag-lawyer","tag-lead","tag-lyon","tag-macron","tag-majority","tag-mayor","tag-meeting","tag-men","tag-national-assembly","tag-north","tag-one","tag-paris","tag-police","tag-police-brutality","tag-police-officer-killed","tag-politicians","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-protest","tag-protesters","tag-racism","tag-revolt","tag-riot","tag-schools","tag-security","tag-shot","tag-sick","tag-social-media","tag-tiktok","tag-traffic","tag-ul","tag-us","tag-victims","tag-video","tag-will","tag-woman","tag-who","tag-young","tag-youth"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51009,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35509\/revisions\/51009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}