A third consecutive evening of violence and degradation shook several cities in France on Thursday, June 29, after the death on Tuesday in Nanterre of Nahel M., a 17-year-old minor killed by a police officer after refusing to comply during an attack. a traffic control.
To stem a “generalization” of urban violence, the authorities had mobilized 40,000 police and gendarmes, as well as elite intervention units such as the RAID or the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) in several cities. This massive deployment did not prevent many overflows across the country. According to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, 667 arrests took place during the night.
“The incidents are taking place all over France but the situation in Ile-de-France and Paris was extremely tense, with law enforcement unable to control everything given the multiplicity of incidents,” said a police source. of high rank.
The center of Paris affected
In the center of Paris, the Nike store in the Forum des Halles was looted, as well as a Zara store in the rue de Rivoli. In Seine-Saint-Denis, many supermarkets were robbed, particularly in Epinay-sur-Seine and Montreuil where rioters tried to reach the police station. Armed with bars and sticks, hundreds of young people destroyed the pharmacy, McDonald’s, an ATM and shops. In Drancy, a truck was used to force the entry of a shopping center which was partly looted and burned, reports a police source. In Pantin, around twenty young people dressed in black, armed with fireworks, fired into the air or towards the police, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP). A fire broke out at the town hall of Clichy-sous-Bois. Thirteen buses from the RATP depot in Aubervilliers were set on fire.
In Seine-et-Marne, shortly after 2 a.m., the police were “very busy” and were able to “contain attempts to break into the police stations of Meaux, Villeparisis, thanks to reinforcements”, assured a source on field.
In the Pablo-Picasso city in Nanterre, where Nahel M. was from, cars were set on fire, firework mortars and homemade grenades were heard, according to an AFP journalist. A bank branch was set on fire.
Night curfews had been decreed in Clamart and Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine), Neuilly-sur-Marne (Seine-Saint-Denis) and Compiègne (Oise).
Fires in Lille and Lyon
The province has not escaped tensions. All night, the firefighters ran from one fire to another in the Lille metropolis, overwhelmed by the rage of small mobile and dispersed groups which increased the damage. In Roubaix, Hotel B
In Lille, the town hall of the popular district of Wazemmes was also the prey of flames which damaged the ground floor and blackened the facade. An elementary school was “very damaged” by the flames in the Moulins district, and two other schools “targeted by fireworks mortar fire”, deplores the town hall. In another popular district, in Fives, the town hall was stoned, its windows broken. There was “a lot of looting” of shops and supermarkets, we still lament in the City.
In the Lyon night, cars burned and trash cans were set on fire, just like in Villeurbanne. In Vaulx-en-Velin, an imposing police force protected the recent Leonardo da Vinci media library, the target of a rain of firework mortars.
“He didn’t want to kill”
Since the death of Nahel M. on Tuesday, schools and public buildings have been the target of the anger of young residents of working-class neighborhoods and set on fire in multiple cities in France, recalling the riots that engulfed France in 2005 after the death of two young people chased by the police. “Scenes of violence” against “the institutions and the Republic” which are “unjustifiable”, castigated Emmanuel Macron.
The tragedy at the origin of the conflagration occurred near the Nanterre-Préfecture RER station, during a police check on the car driven by Nahel, a minor known for refusing to comply. “The prosecution considers that the legal conditions for the use of the weapon” by the policeman who fired the shot “are not met”, declared, Thursday morning, the public prosecutor of Nanterre, Pascal Prache. This 38-year-old policeman, indicted for intentional homicide and remanded in custody in the afternoon, apologized to the family of the teenager killed while in police custody, his lawyer reported Thursday evening, Me Laurent-Franck Liénard, on BFM-TV.
“My client was extremely shocked by the violence of this video (…) which he saw for the first time while in police custody”, assured Me Liénard, in reference to the images showing him firing the fatal shot . “He’s devastated, he doesn’t get up in the morning to kill people. He didn’t mean to kill,” he added.
Earlier in the day, a white march in memory of Nahel gathered more than 6,000 people in Nanterre, according to the police headquarters. The mobilization ended in confusion with clashes, announcing the first signs of a restless evening and night.
