France has sent tens of thousands of police officers into the streets in an effort to head off widespread rioting following the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old, with commuters rushing home before transport services closed early for safety reasons.
The police officer accused of pulling the trigger on Tuesday was handed a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide after prosecutor Pascal Prache said his initial investigation led him to conclude “the conditions for the legal use of the weapon were not met”.
Despite government appeals for calm and vows that order would be restored, smoke billowed from cars and rubbish was set ablaze in the Paris suburb of Nanterre following a peaceful afternoon march in honour of the teenager identified only by his first name, Nahel.
After a morning crisis meeting following violence that injured scores of police and damaged nearly 100 public buildings, interior minister Gerald Darmanin said the number of officers in the streets would more than quadruple, from 9,000 to 40,000. In the Paris region alone, the number of officers deployed would more than double to 5,000.
“The professionals of disorder must go home,” Mr Darmanin said.
While there is no need yet to declare a state of emergency — a measure taken to quell weeks of rioting in 2005 — he added: “The state’s response will be extremely firm.”
He said officers made more than 180 arrests before Thursday and that there would “doubtless” be more.
Bus and tram services in the Paris area were shutting down before sunset as a precaution to safeguard transportation workers and passengers.
The town of Clamart, home to 54,000 people in the French capital’s south-west suburbs, said it was taking the extraordinary step of putting an overnight curfew in place from Thursday through to Monday, citing “the risk of new public order disturbances.”
The mayor of Neuilly-sur-Marne announced a similar curfew in that town in the eastern suburbs of Paris.
Marseille, the giant port city in the south of France saw the beginnings of unrest on Thursday evening, with several hundred young people roaming the city centre and setting fire to rubbish containers, including in front of the region’s main administrative building, police said.
Officers dispersed most of the about 400 people who had gathered, police said. Police arrested three people and one officer was injured.
The unrest extended even to Brussels, where about a dozen people were detained during scuffles related to the shooting in France. Police spokeswoman Ilse Van de Keere said several fires were brought under control, and that at least one car was burned.
The shooting captured on video shocked the country and stirred up long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects and other disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
The teenager’s family and their lawyers have not said the police shooting was race-related and they did not release his surname or details about him.
Still, his death instantly inflamed raw nerves in neighbourhoods that have welcomed generations of immigrants from France’s former colonies and elsewhere. Their France-born children frequently complain that they are subjected to police ID checks and harassment far more frequently than white people or those in more affluent neighbourhoods.
Mr Prache, the Nanterre prosecutor, said officers tried to stop Nahel because he looked so young and was driving a Mercedes with Polish licence plates in a bus lane.
He ran a red light to avoid being stopped then got stuck in traffic. Both officers involved said they drew their guns to prevent him from fleeing.
The officer who fired a single shot said he feared he and his colleague or someone else could be hit by the car, according to Mr Prache. The officers said they felt “threatened” as the car drove off.
He said two magistrates are leading the investigation, as is common in France. Preliminary charges mean investigating judges strongly suspect wrongdoing but need to investigate more before sending the case to trial. The police officer was in provisional detention, prosecutors said.
Despite a beefed-up police presence, violence resumed for a second night on Wednesday, with protesters shooting fireworks and hurling stones at police in Nanterre, who fired repeated volleys of tear gas.
As demonstrations spread to other towns, police and firefighters struggled to contain protesters and extinguish blazes.
Schools, police stations, town halls and other public buildings were damaged from Toulouse in the south to Lille in the north, with most of the damage in the Paris suburbs, according to a national police spokesperson.
Fire damaged the town hall in the the Paris suburb of L’Ile-Saint-Denis, not far from the country’s national stadium and the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Mr Darmanin said 170 officers had been injured in the unrest but none of the injuries was life-threatening. At least 90 public buildings were vandalised. The number of civilians injured was not immediately released.
Scenes of violence in France’s suburbs echo 2005, when the deaths of 15-year-old Bouna Traore and 17-year-old Zyed Benna led to three weeks of nationwide riots, exposing anger and resentment in neglected, crime-ridden suburban housing projects. The two boys were electrocuted after hiding from police in a power substation in a Paris suburb.
The violence this time has spread faster than in 2005, although it has not matched the nationwide scale and sustained intensity of those riots.
There were contradicting accounts about what happened to the two teenagers in 2005, while the video of Nahel’s shooting immediately galvanised anger. Social media that did not exist two decades ago has also amplified unrest this time.
French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency security meeting on Thursday about the violence.
“These acts are totally unjustifiable,” Mr Macron said at the beginning of the meeting, which aimed at securing hot spots and planning for the coming days “so full peace can return”.
Mr Macron also said it was time for “remembrance and respect” as Nahel’s mother called for a silent march on Thursday that drew a large crowd to Nelson Mandela Square, where he was killed.
Some marchers had “Justice for Nahel” printed on the front of their T-shirts. “The police kill” read one marcher’s placard.
Bouquets of orange and yellow roses marked the site of the shooting.
Government officials condemned the killing and sought to distance themselves from the police officer’s actions.
Videos of the shooting shared online show two police officers leaning into the driver-side window of a yellow car before the vehicle pulls away as one officer fires into the window. The videos show the car later crashed into a post nearby.
J’ai mal à ma France. 💙🤍💔💔💔
Une situation inacceptable.
Tout mes pensées vont pour la famille et les proches de Naël, ce petit ange parti beaucoup trop tôt.— Kylian Mbappé (@KMbappe) June 28, 2023
The driver died at the scene, the prosecutor’s office said.
French football star Kylian Mbappe, who grew up in the Paris suburb of Bondy, was among many shocked by what happened.
“I hurt for my France,” he tweeted.
