France is beginning to return to normality after a week of strong riots and violence following the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old boy, shot by an agent at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Paris. The intensity of the riots has gradually decreased and the Government is now working on a “reconstruction” plan, as there are large losses. “The situation is practically normal,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said today.
On Tuesday night there were 16 detainees, compared to more than 1,300 at dawn on Saturday, the worst day. The sign of the return to normality is that transport is now operating again at the usual times. The previous days, buses or trams did not circulate from nine at night to six in the morning in the Parisian region. “With the Minister of the Interior (Gérald Darmanin) we will be extremely vigilant,” Borne said in the Senate.
In his hearing in the Senate, Gérald Darmanin has considered that the current situation is one of “tranquility, after these extremely difficult times”. However, “we must remain vigilant,” he stressed.
The Government has presented today in the Council of Ministers a reconstruction plan that will allow the affected buildings to be repaired and recovered. There are 2,508. Public buildings such as schools, police stations and city halls are also included. Damages of more than 1,000 million euros are estimated, according to data from the employers’ association, Medef. A figure higher than that of the destruction of 2005 and the crisis of the yellow vests.
Those of the wave of riots of that time, provoked after the death of two young people who were electrocuted when they were being chased by the police, were confined above all to the belt of the Parisian periphery.
This crisis has escalated much more, with looting and acts of violence in the center of cities such as Paris or Marseille. In the latter, where the altercations have become more virulent in recent days, 400 shops have been looted and destroyed. The insurers have received declarations of 5,800 claims and have an initial invoice of 280 million euros.
In six days there have been 3,625 detainees, 1,124 are minors. 60% do not have a judicial record nor were they registered by the police. The Government’s strategy to appease this crisis, which has been based on an ambitious police deployment combined with messages of empathy with the Nahel family and with the inhabitants of these neighborhoods, has managed to calm the situation.
The Government is taking this decrease in violence with caution and the president, Emmanuel Macron, already said on Monday that we still had to be prudent. It is feared that the riots will return before July 14, the day of the National Holiday, which will be when Macron takes stock of the last few months.
The fact that makes one think that the thing is not over and is only a truce is that last night the police seized 400 kilos of pyrotechnic material north of Paris.
This crisis erupted after the death last Tuesday of Nahel at a police checkpoint in Nanterre, on the Parisian outskirts. The broadcast of a video in which you can see how two policemen stop the car in which he was going, one points a gun at Nahel, when the car starts the march he shoots him.
The death of the young man unleashed the indignation of the neighborhoods on the outskirts of Paris, the so-called banlieue, which criticizes the racism of the police, but the wave of riots spread throughout the country, with nights in which the thousand detainees. From burning cars and attacking some buildings, they went on to looting businesses and stores.
For several days there have been 45,000 police and gendarmes on the streets, also armored, the elite bodies of law enforcement have been called upon to quell the violence. The policeman who shot Nahel has been in pretrial detention since last Thursday. A collection has been organized to help his family, which has reached one and a half million euros.
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