PARIS, July 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — French authorities deployed reinforcements to flashpoint cities and had made hundreds of arrests by early Sunday, on the fifth night of unrest sparked by the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old who was laid to rest the day before.
A total of 486 people had been arrested across France as of 3 am Sunday, the interior ministry said, though the level of violence appeared to have declined since rioting first broke out over the death of Nahel M. in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday.
“A calmer night thanks to the resolute action of the security forces,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted early Sunday.
Darmanin had told reporters earlier that 45,000 members of the security forces would be deployed overnight — the same number as the night before.
But extra forces and equipment were sent to Lyon, Grenoble and Marseille, which had previously seen intense rioting.
In Paris and its nearby regions, where around 7,000 officers were out in force, 194 people had been arrested as of 3 am Sunday.
In Marseille, police dispersed groups of youths Saturday evening at Canebiere, the main avenue running through the centre of the city.
By midnight, the authorities in Lyon and Marseille were reporting fewer incidents than the previous night, with 77 people arrested as of around 1:30 am in the two cities.
A number of towns have imposed overnight curfews.
The protests over the death of Nahel, who was of Algerian origin, have again exposed the severe racial tensions in modern France, increasing scrutiny on the police, who have long been accused of singling out minorities.
The crisis is a hugely unwelcome development for President Emmanuel Macron, who was looking forward to pressing on with his second mandate after seeing off months of protests that erupted in January over raising the pensions age.
In a sign of the seriousness of the crisis, he postponed a state visit to Germany scheduled to begin Sunday.
Nahel’s funeral ceremony was held on Saturday in Nanterre, where he lived, with hundreds gathering peacefully along with his mother and grandmother.
A ceremony took place in the early afternoon at the mosque in Nanterre, and he was interred in the giant Mont Valerien cemetery in the area. — NNN-AGENCIES
