The de-escalation is confirmed. At the end of a night from Monday to Tuesday marked by a marked decrease in violence, Emmanuel Macron must begin to take stock of a week of riots by receiving on Tuesday the mayors of some 220 municipalities “victims of abuse” through all the countries.

With this consultation of local elected officials at the end of the morning, the President “wishes to begin a meticulous and longer-term work to understand in depth the reasons which led to these events”, specified the Elysée.

The Ministry of the Interior noted in the morning a new sharp decline in violence during the night, with 72 people arrested, against up to several hundred at the height of the violence.

The ministry also recorded 159 vehicle fires and 202 fires on public roads during this seventh consecutive night of riots sparked by the death of young Nahel, 17, killed by a police officer during a traffic check in Nanterre.

Monday was marked by numerous rallies across France in support of the mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne) Vincent Jeanbrun, the day after the car-ram attack on his residence.

For his first trip since the start of the crisis, Emmanuel Macron went in the middle of the evening with his Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin to the Bessières barracks, in the 17th arrondissement of the capital, which hosts the staff of the BAC (Anti-crime brigade) at night and departmental intervention companies.

In the process, he went to the Paris police headquarters, according to the Elysée.

The head of state called for the maintenance of a “massive presence” on the ground “to reinforce the return to calm and order”, his entourage told AFP.

“It would be necessary that at the first offense, we manage to financially and easily sanction the families”, also affirmed the head of state during an exchange with six police officers from the BAC in a brasserie in the north of Paris, a for its part reported the Parisian.

-“I didn’t think about it”-

The nocturnal riots broke out on June 27, hours after the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old teenager shot at point-blank range by a police motorcyclist during a traffic check.

The scene was captured by an amateur video, which contradicted the initial version of the police arguing that the vehicle driven by the young man had run over them.

Its viral distribution has fueled the anger of groups of young people from its home district of Nanterre and elsewhere in France, where clashes with the police have multiplied, the destruction of public buildings and the looting of shops. .

According to figures sent to AFP on Tuesday by the Ministry of the Interior, 3,486 people were arrested, 12,202 vehicles burned, 1,105 buildings burned or degraded and 209 premises of the national police, the gendarmerie or the municipal police attacked from the start. night of June 27-28.

A total of 374 people have been tried in immediate appearance since Friday, according to the Ministry of Justice.

In Strasbourg, firm prison sentences ranging from four to ten months were pronounced during these hearings.

“It was an opportunistic theft: it was broken, I didn’t think about it, I entered”, explained to the court Rayane, 26, who came out of a Zara store “with a large package of clothes under his arm” .

The main French employers’ organizations, for their part, are calling on the government to put in place support measures for affected traders and entrepreneurs, in particular a “relief fund” for “those who have lost everything”.

The damage is estimated by the president of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, at one billion euros. “Not to mention the damage to tourism. The videos of the riots, which have circulated around the world, are degrading the image of France,” the boss of bosses told Le Parisien.

In Ile-de-France, the riots caused “at least 20 million euros in damage” to public transport, from burnt buses to broken street furniture, according to a first estimate by Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) .

As for the investigation, the third occupant of the car driven by Nahel was heard on Monday by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), AFP learned from a source familiar with the matter. Wanted since the facts, this man presented himself before the “police of the police”.

The police officer responsible for the shooting which killed Nahel was indicted for intentional homicide and imprisoned.

A pot of support for the agent exceeded one million euros on the internet on Monday, arousing the indignation of elected officials on the left.

07/04/2023 09:24:46 –         Paris (AFP) –         © 2023 AFP