The officer accused of fatally shooting teenager Nahel Merzouk is in custody on a voluntary manslaughter charge, and a judge in Versailles on Thursday rejected his request for his release pending further investigation.
“We are all living through an important moment in the life of our nation,” Macron said in the southern city of Pau, on the edge of the Pyrenees. He added that France now needs “order, calm, unity. And then work on the root causes of what happened.”
He did not mention what those causes are. The French leader blamed the parents of the young rioters and social media, including TikTok and Snapchat, for fueling the violence that has spread to some 500 cities and towns.
Some activists, along with residents of the low-income neighborhoods where the violence began, say the killing was the latest evidence of systematic police brutality and unaddressed racial discrimination in France. Merzouk was of North African origin.
FUENTE: Associated Press
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