France endures fourth night of violence, destruction and looting

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Riots broke out across France for a fourth night after the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old driver of North African descent as his family was preparing to bury him in his hometown of Nanterre on Saturday.

The Interior Ministry said 994 arrests were made overnight compared to 875 on Thursday night and suggested the ferocity of the protests was waning.

Rioters caused significant damage, with cars and buildings being set on fire, widespread looting around Marseille and Paris, and dozens of attacks on police stations.

“We can assume that the events overnight were less intense,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told the BFMTV news channel on Saturday morning.

He said the large number of arrests, along with the deployment of armored vehicles, helicopters and 45,000 police officers, had created a “psychological shock” that kept people from rioting.

The government said the average age of those arrested on Friday was 17 years.

The Tuesday killing of Nahel, whose last name has not been made public, sparked a wave of anger in the Paris suburb where he lived that has spread to cities and towns across France.

According to it, tensions have risen between police and young people in low-income areas that are home to minorities and immigrants, who face racial profiling by police and discrimination in housing and job opportunities. Officer studies,

The unrest poses a major challenge to French President Emmanuel Macron, who has called for calm and described the shootings as “inexplicable and inexcusable”.

His government has been criticized by far-right leader Marine Le Pen for being too lenient on rioters and soft on crime, while far-left politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon said police violence must end.

Prosecutors have reportedly filed preliminary charges of voluntary manslaughter against one of the two officers involved in the shooting, and placed him in pre-trial custody, a rare move in such cases.

Public buses and tramways were closed overnight to prevent targeting and arson, while curfews were imposed in some towns.

French football captain Kylian Mbappe and the national team tried to persuade the protesters to stop the violence.

“Many of us from working-class neighborhoods share this feeling of pain and sadness,” he wrote on Mbappe’s Twitter account. But he criticized the “self-destruction”, saying “it’s your property you’re destroying, your neighbourhood, your city”.