There were sporadic incidents of violence across France on Saturday (July 1) after the funeral of a teenager of North African descent, whose shooting by police sparked nationwide unrest since Tuesday. According to a report by the news agency Reuters early Sunday, around 45,000 police personnel were on the streets with specialised elite units, armoured vehicles, and helicopters brought in to reinforce Paris, Lyon, and Marseille.
The report said that on Sunday morning, the situation was calmer than the previous four nights and local authorities announced bans on demonstrations, ordered public transport to stop running in the evening, and some imposed overnight curfews.
Here are the top points on the unrest:
> On Sunday morning, L’Hay-les-Roses’ mayor tweeted that rioters rammed a car into his house, injuring his wife and one of his children. “My wife and one of my children were injured. It was an attempted murder of unspeakable cowardice,” Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun tweeted.
> According to the French interior ministry, 719 people were arrested over the unrest on Sunday, the news agency AFP reported. On Friday night, 1,311 people had been arrested compared with 875 the previous night.
> Hundreds of people gathered in Nanterre’s grand mosque to attend the funeral of 17-year-old Nahel, who was shot by a police officer on Tuesday. Some of the mourners could be heard saying. “God is Greatest” in Arabic as they spanned the boulevard in prayer.
> The killing of Nahel has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism.
> On Thursday, the Nanterre prosecutor said that the 17-year-old was known to police for previously failing to comply with traffic stop orders and was illegally driving a rental car.
> Since the beginning of the unrest, rioters have torched 2,000 vehicles. On Saturday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that over 200 police officers have been injured, adding, the average age of those arrested was 17, Reuters reported.
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> Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, meanwhile, said that over 700 shops, supermarkets restaurants, and bank branches were “ransacked, looted and sometimes even burnt to the ground since Tuesday.”
> The current riots have revived memories of a nationwide stir in 2005 which forced then-President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency after the death of two young men electrocuted in a power substation as they hid from police.
> The unrest has also added more political pressure on President Emmanuel Macron, who has been facing months of public anger after pushing through a pension overhaul.
(With inputs from agencies)
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