PARIS (AP) — Unrest across France sparked by the police shooting of a 17-year-old appeared to slow on its sixth night, but still public buildings, cars and municipal trash cans were targeted nationwide by fires and vandalism overnight into Monday.
In all, according to the Interior Ministry, there were 157 arrests overnight, out of a total of 3,354 arrests in all since June 27, and two law enforcement stations were attacked, among other damage.
Around 45,000 officers were deployed nationwide to counter violence fuelled by anger over discrimination against people who trace their roots to former French colonies and live in low-income neighborhoods. Nahel, the teenager killed last Tuesday, was of Algerian descent and was shot in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
Across France, 297 vehicles were torched overnight along with 34 buildings.
Police officers patrol in front of the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees in Paris, on July 1, 2023.
Christophe Ena via Associated Press
A 24-year-old firefighter died of a heart attack while responding to a blaze in an underground garage that spread to the apartment building above, according to a statement from Paris police. The cause of the fire was under investigation, the statement said.
A burning car stuck the home of the mayor of the Paris suburb L’Hay-les-Roses over the weekend, an unusually personal attack amid the backdrop of fires and vandalism targeting police stations and town halls.
French President Emmanuel Macron has blamed social media for the spread of the unrest and called on parents to take responsibility for their teenagers. Eric Dupond-Moretti, the justice minister, told France Inter radio that parents who abdicated that responsibility “either through disinterest or deliberately” would be prosecuted.
French President Emmanuel Macron, center, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, left, and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire attend a government emergency meeting at the emergency crisis center of the Interior Ministry in Paris, on July 2, 2023 after a 17-year-old whose killing by police has triggered days of rioting and looting across the nation.
Mohamed Badra/Pool via Associated Press
He was cautious when asked whether he thought the protests had eased definitively.
Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun said his wife and one of his children were injured and criticized the government for doing too little, too late — and said blaming social media or parents was papering over a bigger problem.
“The base ingredients are still there. For several years now, all summer long, explosives go off that keep people from sleeping, that make them crazy,” he told BFM television on Monday. “We are powerless summer after summer.”
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