Police officers face protesters in Concorde Square during a protest in Paris, France, Friday, June 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
A helicopter flies over Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, France, on June 30, 2023, on the third night of protests following the death of a 17-year-old driver by police shooting. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
French President Emmanuel Macron gets out of a car Friday, June 30, 2023 to attend an emergency government meeting in Paris, after riots broke out for the third night in a row across the country. (Yves Herman/Pool via AP)
Police officers clear a street on the third night of protests following the death of a 17-year-old driver by police shooting, in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, France, on June 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard ) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Despite repeated calls by the government for calm and tougher police measures after several nights of riots, further riots broke out in broad daylight on Friday. An Apple store was looted in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where police fired tear gas, and the windows of a fast-food outlet were smashed in a Paris-area shopping center, where police also repelled people trying to entering a closed store, authorities said.
The port city of Marseille, initially spared from the violence that first erupted in the Paris region, was experiencing its second night of riots. Before dark, some youths threw projectiles, started fires and looted some shops, according to the police. There were at least 90 arrests. On Friday night, looters broke into a Marseille armory and made off with weapons, later detaining a man with a hunting rifle, according to police. The night before, two off-duty officers suffered serious injuries, one of them with a knife, when they were attacked by about 20 people, according to police.
Lyon city authorities reported that protesters once again set fires and launched projectiles at police in the suburbs. In the city center, police made 21 arrests to stop an attempted looting of shops following an unauthorized protest against police violence that brought together some 1,300 people on Friday night.
Violence also broke out in some French overseas territories.
In French Guiana, a 54-year-old man was killed Thursday night by a stray bullet when rioters fired on police in the capital, Cayenne, authorities said. On the small Indian Ocean island of Réunion, protesters set rubbish bins on fire, hurled projectiles at police and damaged cars and buildings, authorities said in a statement. About 150 officers were deployed there on Friday night.
Faced with the escalation of the crisis, Macron has refrained from declaring a state of emergency, an option that was used in similar circumstances in 2005.
Instead, his government stepped up its police response. The already huge police deployment was reinforced with another 5,000 officers by Friday night, bringing the total number to 45,000, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. Darmanin reported that police had made 917 arrests on Thursday alone, noting his young age: 17 on average. He added that more than 300 police officers and firefighters have been injured.
Darmanin also ordered the nightly closure of all public bus and tram runs in the country, which were one of the targets of the riots.
And he said that he had issued a warning to social networks that they cannot afford to be used as channels for calls for violence.
“They were very cooperative. We’ll see tonight if they really are. We are going to give them all the information possible” so that, in exchange, the French authorities obtain the identities of the people who incite violence, the minister explained.
“We will prosecute anyone who uses these social networks to commit violent acts,” he said. “And we will take all necessary measures if we are aware that social networks, whatever they are, do not respect the law.”
Macron also focused on social networks that have broadcast images of burning cars and buildings and other acts of violence, saying they are playing a “considerable role” in the violence. Highlighting Snapchat and TikTok, he claimed they were being used to stage riots and serving as a conduit to imitate violence.
Macron said his government would work with technology companies to establish procedures for “the removal of the most sensitive content,” adding that he expected “a spirit of responsibility” from them.
Snapchat spokeswoman Rachel Racusen said the company has increased its moderation since Tuesday to detect and act on content related to the riots in France.
“Violence has devastating consequences, and we have zero tolerance for content that promotes or incites hate or violent behavior anywhere on Snapchat,” Racusen said.
The shooting death of the 17-year-old, who has only been identified by his first name Nahel, was caught on video, shocking France and stirring long-standing tensions between police and young people from deprived neighbourhoods.
Macron said a third of the people detained on Thursday night were “young, sometimes very young”, and that “it is the responsibility of the parents” to keep their children at home.
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Corbet and Leicester reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Jeffrey Schaeffer and Aurelien Morissard in Nanterre; Raf Casert in Brussels; Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon; Frank Jordans in Berlin and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
FUENTE: Associated Press
