France is experiencing the third straight night of protests and riots over the death of a teenager by a police officer in the Paris region.
According to statements by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, to France 24, more than a hundred people have already been arrested in the country this Thursday (29). Darmanin expressed support for “our police, gendarmes and firefighters, who are doing courageous work”.
“It’s time for everyone to calm down. And for Justice to do its necessary work,” wrote the mayor of Paris, Ariel Weil, on Twitter. Faced with the riots, firefighters in the French capital advised the population “not to overload the lines [telefônicas] emergency and give priority to urgencies”.
The government of France has mobilized 40,000 security forces agents this night to try to prevent a repetition of the disturbances that have occurred in the last two days after the death of a 17-year-old black youth, identified only as Nahel M., shot by a police officer in Nanterre , city on the outskirts of Paris, on Tuesday (27). This mobilization of police represented four times more than that of Wednesday (28).
Darmanin said that “the riots have nothing to do with what happened in Nanterre” and that the attacks that took place on Wednesday night against agents (170 were injured, although none seriously) or against public buildings were “absolutely unacceptable”.
At least 150 people were arrested on the second day of unrest, which also resulted in attacks on 90 public buildings (such as city halls, schools, police stations or courts), many of them set on fire, as well as dozens of cars.
On Thursday, the French police officer who shot the teenager was arrested and charged with manslaughter.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Nahel, with a criminal record for fleeing police checkpoints and who did not have a driver’s license, was detected shortly before 8 am on Tuesday morning in the streets of Nanterre because he was driving a yellow sports Mercedes that he had committed different traffic violations.
A pair of police officers tried to stop him, but the young man accelerated the vehicle and began a chase that ended when the Mercedes got stuck in a traffic jam.
The policemen drew their weapons, pointed them at the driver, demanding that he cut the engine, but Nahel accelerated again. It was then that one of the police officers fired at close range, killing the young man.
Prosecutor Pascal Prache justified the arrest request for the 38-year-old police officer who shot the young man by claiming that the use of the weapon did not follow “legal conditions”.
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