In response to the ongoing demonstrations and the dire situation following the recent police killing of an Arab teenager, France’s President Emmanuel Macron has scheduled a second crisis meeting.
Two days after another night of unrest and protests in several French cities, where stores, banks, and buses were set on fire, Macron is scheduled to call his cabinet for a second crisis meeting on Friday.
According to his office, Macron will meet with his cabinet at 1100 GMT in Paris, likely cutting short his attendance at an EU summit in Brussels. As of now, the president has decided against making a state of emergency.
The death of Nahel M, a 17-year-old boy of North African descent, by police on Tuesday during a traffic stop in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, caused unrest and clashes among minorities in French society who were outraged by the racism and police brutality.
Because of the societal backlash against the police shooting of an Arab teenager to death, there is currently a dangerous situation that is only getting worse.
The mother of the murdered adolescent, whose senseless death has caused the unrest, claimed on Thursday that her son’s murder was racially motivated.
She claims that racism caused the 38-year-old police officer who killed her son and has since been charged with voluntary homicide to forego using other methods of controlling her son, who was driving the car, because he “saw an Arab face.”.
In her first interview with the media since the shooting on Tuesday morning, Mounia—a prominent protester now—said, “I blame one person: the one who took the life of my son.”.
He wasn’t required to murder my son. A bullet? So close to his chest? No, no,” the single mother, who was identified as working in the medical field, cried out to the television station.
“I have pals who work as police. They are entirely to my rear. They reject what occurred, she said.
The officer “saw an Arab face, a little kid,” and wanted to kill him, she claimed.
She sobbed, asking how much longer this would last, how many more children would experience this, and how many mothers would be in the same situation as she was.
Along with certain Parisian neighborhoods, violence also erupted in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse, and Lille.
Gerald Darmanin, the interior minister, announced on Twitter on Friday that at least 667 people had been detained overnight across France as protesters and police fought.
In an effort to put an end to unrest that had continued into a third night, the Interior Ministry sent out 40,000 police officers on Thursday.
Public transportation in the Paris region will be severely disrupted on Friday, according to Transport Minister Clement Beaune, who also did not rule out an early network closure, on RMC radio. In an overnight incident at a bus depot in Aubervilliers, north of Paris, twelve buses were set on fire and completely destroyed.
After a previous calm vigil held by Mounia to remember the dead boy, protesters torched cars, blocked streets, and threw projectiles at police in Nanterre, where the victim lived on the western outskirts of Paris.
According to Paris police, nine police and fire officers were hurt in the break-in of a Nike shoe store in the city’s center. Additionally, several people were detained after store windows on the pedestrianized Rue de Rivoli were broken.
As youths and police clashed in the south, police used tear gas grenades, and Marseille’s Le Vieux Port, a popular tourist destination, was evacuated.
The TESSI company’s office in Roubaix, northern France, was destroyed by fire, and several cars were also set ablaze.
The unrest has brought back memories of the riots that shook France for three weeks in 2005, forcing then-President Jacques Chirac to issue a state of emergency.
