A new front has opened up for French President Emmanuel Macron when the crisis unleashed by the approval of the unpopular pension reform has just ended, which ended with four months of protests in the streets. The wave of riots that the Government is now facing is of a different and more sensitive nature: it comes from afar and stirs up the worst ghosts of a France with integration problems for part of its population and with law enforcement whose actions are increasingly being questioned. .
The death of Nahel, 17 years old, last Tuesday at a police checkpoint after being shot by an agent has lit the fuse of violence in the neighborhoods of France, the so-called banlieue, which are marginal areas where French people live with parents and grandparents of immigrant origin, especially from the former French colonies. The country has experienced another night of riots in these neighborhoods of different cities in the country, while the Government tries to stop what could become a powder keg.
President Macron has convened a crisis cell first thing in the morning for “preparing for the next few days”, and with the aim that “calm can return” to the streets. Before beginning the meeting with his ministers, he described the violence in recent days against “the symbols of the Republic” as intolerable. No one forgets the wave of riots in 2005, which began with the death of two young people who were electrocuted in a police chase and ended with thousands of arrests, several deaths, and forced the declaration of a state of emergency.
The Minister of the Interior has mobilized an unprecedented device for the night, in anticipation of new altercations: There are 40,000 agents throughout the country, 5,000 of them only in the Parisian region, the hottest territory and where incidents have been recorded in a dozen suburban towns.
To make a comparison: At the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris next summer, which is considered a high-risk event, about 35,000 are expected. “They will have the technical and technological means at their disposal to deal with the riots, make arrests and restore republican order,” Darmanin said.
In the early hours of Thursday, schools, town halls, police stations, buses and trams have been set on fire. The night ended with 150 detainees, adding to the 30 the day before. It’s 180 in two days. The situation was so tense that dozens of schools in the affected neighborhoods have been closed and from nine o’clock at night transport will no longer circulate in the Parisian region. In Lille it has been brought forward at eight.
All the movements of the ministers that are not strictly essential have been postponed until further notice. On the political level, the fuse has lit almost as fast as in the streets. Some opposition parties have called for the state of alarm to be activated.
Eric Ciotti, the president of Los Republicanos, has said that “the images of riots are unbearable.” “Under no circumstances can the Republic submit. I ask for the immediate activation of the state of alarm in all places or at least where incidents have broken out,” he said.
Without a majority in the Assembly, this party is the key to the Government to be able to carry out its laws. Marion Marichal Le Pen, niece of the far-right Marine Le Pen, also demanded that the state of alarm be activated. “The conditions for this do not exist,” warned the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne.
The investigation into Nahel’s death is advancing. The agent who shot him is accused of voluntary manslaughter and in pretrial detention. Today some information has been released, and part of the motivations that led him to pull the trigger. The Nanterre prosecutor, Pascal Prache, explained at a press conference that the first elements of the investigation show that “the conditions for the use of the regulatory weapon were not met.”
In the video broadcast on social networks, you can see how the two agents stop the young man at a checkpoint. One of them points his pistol at him and shoots him when the minor disobeys the order and starts the car.
In his statement, the agent explained that he fired “with the desire to prevent the vehicle from escaping again, due to the danger that driving it posed and for fear of being injured by the movement of the car.” Nahel was driving without a license and had disobeyed a previous call to stop the vehicle. Yes, he was known by the police services for disobedience, as confirmed by the attorney. Two more young men were traveling in the car. One is on the run and the other was arrested.
The police unions have denounced “the pressure of the Government” and its “interference in the judicial process”, having criticized the actions of the agent involved before justice did it, to try to calm the streets.
The association of mayors of France (AMF, in its French acronym) have appealed for calm. “The association has expressed its solidarity with all the towns and their inhabitants who are facing unacceptable violence that is affecting the national territory.”
The neighborhoods of France are preparing for another early morning of riots. Clamart, on the Parisian outskirts, decreed a curfew from nine at night to six in the morning until July 3. In Nanterre, the city of the deceased young man, elite police units have been deployed. They have not waited for midnight and the riots have already started in the middle of the afternoon, just as the demonstration organized by his mother to honor his memory was ending.
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