France braces for new violence as teenager is laid to rest
Protesters walk past a burnt out trash bin during clashes with police in Marseille, southern France on July 1, 2023, after a fourth consecutive night of rioting in France over the killing of a teenager by police. – French police arrested 1311 people nationwide during a fourth consecutive night of rioting over the killing of a teenager by police, the interior ministry said on July 1, 2023. France had deployed 45,000 officers overnight backed by light armoured vehicles and crack police units to quell the violence over the death of 17-year-old Nahel, killed during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb on July 27, 2023. (Photo by CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU / AFP)

French authorities on Saturday prepared for a fifth consecutive night of rioting by sending reinforcements to flashpoint cities. as the 17-year-old whose killing by a policeman sparked the violent protests was laid to rest.

Police arrested 1,311 people overnight Friday to Saturday, the highest figure since the violent protests began over the point-blank killing by a policeman of Nahel M. in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday.

Shops were ransacked and town halls attacked in various locations nationwide by gangs, often made up of teens organised on social media and armed with fireworks.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters that 45,000 members of the security forces would be deployed overnight Saturday to Sunday — the same number as the night before — but with additional forces and equipment sent to Lyon, Grenoble and Marseille which saw the worst rioting the previous night.

Numbers would be “considerably reinforced” in these cities “in order to completely restore republican order”, Darmanin said.

The protests over the death of the teen, who was of Algerian origin, have again exposed the severe racial tensions in modern France and increased scrutiny on the police who have long been accused of singling out minorities.

The crisis is a hugely unwelcome development for President Emmanuel Macron, who was looking forward to pressing on with his second mandate after seeing off protests that erupted in January over raising the pensions age.

In a sign of the seriousness of the crisis, he postponed a state visit to Germany scheduled to begin Sunday.

The German presidency announced that Macron spoke by telephone with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier “and informed him of the situation in his country”.

Dialogue and reconstruction’ –
Nahel’s funeral ceremony began in the Paris suburb of Nanterre where he lived, with a large crowd gathering in a tense atmosphere with the youths present not wanting their faces photographed by media, an AFP reporter said.

A ceremony took place in the early afternoon at the mosque in Nanterre with the interment taking place in the giant Mont Valerien cemetery in the area.

CDA NEWS)
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