Macron scraps trip amid rioting across France, as loved ones bury teen slain by police
By CARA ANNA, ANGELA CHARLTON and LEWIS JOLY
Associated Press
NANTERRE, France (AP) — President Emmanuel Macron scrapped an official trip to Germany on Saturday after a fourth straight night of rioting and looting across France in defiance of a massive police deployment. Hundreds turned out for the burial of the 17-year-old whose killing by police triggered the unrest.
France’s Interior Ministry announced that in the latest night of violence, 1,311 people were arrested around the country, where 45,000 police officers fanned out in a so-far unsuccessful bid to restore order. In the violence sparked by the teen’s death on Tuesday, some 2,400 persons have been arrested overall. The interior minister, defending the mass arrests, said 45,000 police would again be deployed Saturday night, with an increase in the cities of Marseille and Lyon after a spike in violence there.
Protesters and rioters turned out on the streets of cities and towns, clashing with police, despite Macron’s appeal to parents to keep their children at home. About 2,500 fires were set and stores were ransacked, according to authorities. The justice minister said 30% of those detained were minors, some as young as 13. “It’s not up to the state to raise children,” said the minister, Eric Dupond-Moretti, lashing out at parents of underage rioters.
At a hilltop cemetery in Nanterre, where the teen identified only as Nahel was killed, hundreds of people stood along the road to pay tribute as mourners carried his white casket to the burial site, where journalists were barred. Some of the men carried folded prayer rugs. Before the burial, prayers were held at a mosque.
“Men first,” an official in suit and tie declared to dozens of women waiting to enter the cemetery. But Nahel’s mother, dressed in white, walked straight inside to applause and headed toward the grave. Many of the men were young and Arab or Black, coming to mourn a boy who could have been them.
After days of protests, police were nowhere to be seen.
The violence was taking a toll on Macron’s diplomatic profile. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s office said Macron phoned Saturday to request a postponement of what would have been the first state visit by a French president to Germany in 23 years. Macron had been scheduled to fly to Germany on Sunday evening for the visit to Berlin and two other German cities.
Macron’s office said he spoke with Steinmeier and, “given the internal security situation, the president (Macron) said he wishes to stay in France over the coming days.”
Nahel was shot during a traffic stop Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Video showed two officers at the window of the car, one with his gun pointed at the driver. As the teenager pulled forward, the officer fired once through the windshield. This week, Nahel’s mother told France 5 television that she was angry at the officer who shot her son, but not at the police in general.
“He saw a little Arab-looking kid, he wanted to take his life,” she said.
Nahel’s family has roots in Algeria. Race was a taboo topic for decades in France, which is officially committed to a doctrine of colorblind universalism.
The police officer accused of killing Nahel was given a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide, meaning that investigating magistrates strongly suspect wrongdoing, but need to investigate more before sending a case to trial. Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache said that his initial investigation led him to conclude that the officer’s use of his weapon wasn’t legally justified.
Anger over Nahel’s death erupted in violence, including in the French territories overseas, where a 54-year-old died after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana. Hundreds of police and firefighters have been injured. Authorities haven’t released injury tallies for protesters.
The reaction to the killing was a potent reminder of the persistent poverty, discrimination, unemployment and other lack of opportunity in neighborhoods around France where many residents trace their roots to former French colonies — like where Nahel grew up.
“Nahel’s story is the lighter that ignited the gas. Hopeless young people were waiting for it. We lack housing and jobs, and when we have (jobs), our wages are too low,” said Samba Seck, a 39-year-old transportation worker in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois.
Clichy was the birthplace of weeks of riots in 2005 that shook France, prompted by the deaths of two teenagers electrocuted in a power substation while fleeing from police. One of the boys lived in the same housing project as Seck.
Like many Clichy residents, he lamented the violence targeting his town, where the remains of a burned car stood beneath his apartment building, and the town hall entrance was set alight in rioting this week.
“Young people break everything, but we are already poor, we have nothing,” he said, adding that “young people are afraid to die at the hands of police.”
Despite the escalating crisis, Macron held off on declaring a state of emergency, an option used in 2005. But government ratcheted up its law enforcement response, with the mass deployment of police officers, including some who were called back from vacation.
France’s justice minister, Dupond-Moretti, on Saturday warned that young people who share calls for violence on Snapchat or other apps could face legal prosecution. Macron has blamed social media for fueling violence.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said 700 shops have been damaged and promised government support for owners.
“There is no nation without order, without common rules,” he said.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has ordered a nationwide nighttime shutdown of all public buses and trams, which have been among rioters’ targets. He also said he warned social networks not to allow themselves to be used as channels for calls to violence.
The violence comes just over a year before Paris and other French cities are due to host Olympic athletes and millions of visitors for the summer Olympics, whose organizers were closely monitoring the situation as preparations for the competition continue.
Thirteen people who didn’t comply with traffic stops were fatally shot by French police last year. This year, three more people, including Nahel, died under similar circumstances. The deaths have prompted demands for more accountability in France, which also saw racial justice protests after George Floyd’s killing by police in Minnesota.
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Charlton reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Jade le Deley in Clichy-sous-Bois, France; Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon; Jocelyn Noveck in New York: and Geir Moulson in Berlin, contributed to this report.
