PARIS – Young rioters clashed with police into the early hours of Sunday and attacked a mayor’s house with a burning car, injuring members of his family, including France saw a fifth night of riots after the police killing of a teenager. However, the general violence seemed to subside from previous nights.
Police made 719 arrests across the country early Sunday after a massive security deployment aimed at quelling France’s worst social unrest in years.
The crisis posed a new challenge for the leadership of President Emmanuel Macron and exposed deep-seated discontent in low-income neighborhoods over discrimination and lack of opportunity.
The 17-year-old whose death sparked outrage on Tuesday was buried Saturday in a Muslim ceremony in Nanterre, a Paris suburb where emotions over his loss run high. He has been publicly identified only by his first name, Nahel.
As night fell on Saturday, a small crowd gathered on the Champs-Elysees to protest his death and police violence, only to be met by hundreds of officers with batons and shields guarding the avenue and its boutiques. In a less chic neighborhood of Paris, protesters set off firecrackers and lit barricades as police responded with tear gas and stun grenades.
A burning car hit the house of the mayor of the Paris suburb of l’Hay-les-Roses. Several schools, police stations, town halls and businesses have been set on fire or vandalized in recent days, but such a personal attack on a mayor’s home is unusual.
Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun said his wife and one of their children were injured in the 1:30 a.m. attack while they were sleeping and he was in city hall monitoring the violence.
Jeanbrun, of the conservative opposition Republican Party, said the attack represented a new stage of “horror and ignominy” in the unrest and urged the government to impose a state of emergency.
Regional prosecutor Stephane Hardouin has opened an attempted murder investigation in the attack, telling French television that a preliminary investigation suggests the car was intended to ram the house and set it on fire. He said a flame accelerator in a bottle was found in the car.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne went to l’Hay-les-Roses to meet Jeanbrun along with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and other officials, vowing that “we are going to do everything possible to restore order as soon as possible.”
Macron planned to hold a special security meeting on Sunday night with Borne, Darmanin and the justice minister.
Skirmishes broke out in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, but they appeared less intense than the night before, according to the Interior Ministry. A reinforced police contingent arrested 55 people there.
Nationwide arrests were lower than the night before. Darmanin attributed it to “the determined action of the security forces.”
More than 3,000 people have been detained in total since Nahel’s death. The massive police deployment has been welcomed by some frightened residents of select neighborhoods and shop owners whose shops have been looted, but it has further frustrated those who see police behavior as at the heart of France’s current crisis.
The riots affected Macron’s diplomatic position. On Saturday, a day before his scheduled departure, he postponed what would have been the first state visit to Germany by a French president in 23 years.
Hundreds of police officers and firefighters have been injured in the violence, though authorities have not said how many protesters were injured. In French Guiana, an overseas territory, a 54-year-old man died after being hit by a stray bullet.
On Saturday, Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti warned that young people who share calls for violence on Snapchat or other apps could face prosecution. Macron has blamed social media for fueling the violence.
While concerts at the national stadium and smaller events across the country were canceled due to the violence and some neighborhoods were badly damaged, life in other parts of France went on as usual.
Fans tuned in for the start of the Tour de France cycling race in neighboring Spain; Marseille hosted a petanque championship, a game that involves rolling metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden or plastic one; and the families that could afford it were heading for the summer holidays.
In the capital, tourists flocked to the Eiffel Tower, where workers installed a nearby clock counting down to next year’s Paris Olympics. A short walk from Nanterre, a shopping mall was bustling on Sunday with customers from all walks of life.
Hundreds of mourners stood on a road leading to a hilltop cemetery in Nanterre on Saturday to pay respects to Nahel as his white coffin was carried from a mosque to his grave. Her mother, dressed in white, entered the cemetery to applause. Many of the men were young and Arab or black, coming to mourn a child that might have been them.
Nahel’s mother told France 5 television that she was angry with the officer who shot her son at a traffic stop, but not with the police in general.
“He saw a little Arab-looking boy. He wanted to take his own life,” she said. Nahel’s family has roots in Algeria.
Video of the murder showed two officers at the car window, one with his gun pointed at the driver. As the teen moved forward, the officer fired once through the windshield. The officer accused of killing Nahel was given a preliminary charge of voluntary manslaughter.
Thirteen people who failed to comply with traffic stops were fatally shot by French police last year, and three this year, prompting demands for greater liability. France also saw protests over police violence and racial injustice after the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.
The reaction to the murder was a powerful reminder of the persistent poverty, discrimination and limited job prospects in France’s neighborhoods, where many trace their roots to former French colonies.
In 2005, France was rocked by weeks of unrest sparked by the death of two teenagers who were electrocuted to death at an electrical substation in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois while fleeing from police. Several buildings burned down this week, including the town hall, a secondary school, a library and a supermarket.
“I feel hatred towards the policeman who killed Nahel. I wanted to kill him,” said Abdel Moucer, 15, a Clichy resident. “In 2005, when Zyed and Bouna were killed, we had no video or social media. Today we have all seen what happened.”
But Moucer lamented the recent violence and the damage it has caused in disadvantaged towns like his own.
“I feel sad, I don’t know why they set fire to the town hall,” he said.
At the foot of a bridge near the Eiffel Tower, where generations of couples have placed padlocks to symbolize lasting love, a Senegalese man who sells cheap locks and keys shook his head when asked if Nahel’s murder and the ensuing violence would change anything. .
“I doubt it,” he said, giving only his first name, Demba, for fear of retaliation. “The discrimination runs too deep.”
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Anna reported from Nanterre. Jade le Deley in Clichy-sous-Bois, France; Sylvie Corbet in Paris; Jocelyn Noveck in New York; and Helena Alves in Paris contributed.
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