The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has announced this Friday some measures to try to contain the wave of riots that has shaken the country for three days after the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old boy, after being shot by a police officer last Tuesday. at a control in Nanterre, one of the neighborhoods on the outskirts of Paris, also called banlieue.
Macron, who was in Brussels at the European summit, has brought forward his return to be able to chair the second crisis meeting that has been held since the riots began. Several of the government ministers attended, including the Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, and the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne.
In the early hours of Friday the violence has escalated a degree, with almost 900 detainees and degradations, looting and fires in numerous French cities. The riots are no longer only in the neighborhoods of the cities, but have spread to the center of them as happened yesterday in Marseille or Paris.
Macron has denounced the “unacceptable instrumentalization of the death of a boy” and has called for firmness for those “who use this situation to create disorder”, attack buildings and loot shops. He has appealed to “the responsibility of parents”, since he has explained that the current situation is the result of the acts “of organized and equipped groups”, but “also many young people”.
“I appeal to the sense of responsibility of mothers and fathers. The Republic has no vocation to replace them (…) It is their responsibility to keep them at home,” he said.
The average age of young people arrested in recent days is 17 years. Some are organized groups, older individuals, but others are kids who meet on social networks and then post the videos. Macron has also requested the collaboration of the networks to be able to identify the perpetrators of the damage.
Although some parties were asking for a state of emergency to be declared to prevent the riots from escalating, the president limited himself to pointing out that there will be extra security reinforcements to deal with these acts. Already on Thursday, 40,000 police and gendarmes were deployed and elite police units were sent to some areas, which could not contain the riots.
For now, this weekend festive events and meetings in “the most sensitive departments to protect compatriots” will be cancelled. She has left the ball in the court of the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, who will announce and specify more measures in the next few hours.
There is no state of emergency, but there are curfews in some towns and a stoppage in transport in the Paris region and in Bordeaux starting at nine at night, precisely to prevent buses and trams from catching fire. Darmanin has asked the government delegations (prefects) to extend it to all of France.
After three days of incidents that have been increasing, the president juggles to prevent the atmosphere from becoming more ignited in these neighborhoods, where from time to time the fuse lights up. Its inhabitants are mostly French, with parents or grandparents of immigrant, North African or sub-Saharan African origin. They criticize the racism of the forces of order.
In this case it has been the death of Nahel that has unleashed the anger. The Government is counting on the riots not to stop, at least in the coming days. The precedent is in 2005, when the death of two young people who were electrocuted when they were fleeing from the police caused a wave of violence that lasted for weeks and forced the declaration of a state of emergency.
Macron, who has just turned the page on the social crisis unleashed by the approval of his unpopular pension reform, had given himself until July 14 to reassure the country. With this new front open, he is far from making it.
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