France will suspend all bus and tram services at night – while deploying 45,000 officers across the country – amid ongoing riots over a police shooting.
Violent protests are spreading throughout France after a 17-year-old was shot by police during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday.
In the aftermath, people have taken to the streets on three consecutive nights to protest, setting cars alight and throwing stones and fireworks.
There are fears that the unrest could continue for a fourth night.
Some key locations where the rioting took place
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told TF1 television that 45,000 extra police officers, which will include paramilitary gendarmes, would be deployed across France on Friday night.
Police said 917 arrests were made during clashes overnight on Thursday and into Friday morning.
Officials said the average age of those detained was 17 – with some as young as 13.
A young man who jumped out of a building when the ground floor of a supermarket was hit by rioting on Thursday has died, according to BFM TV, which quoted prosecutors in Rouen, northern France.
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View of burnt buses at a RATP bus depot in Aubervilliers, damaged during night clashes
President Emmanuel Macron has urged parents to keep teenagers at home to limit potential rioting in the coming days.
He also blamed social media for fuelling copycat violence and said it had played a “significant role in the events of the past few days”.
Mr Macron, meanwhile, has been urged to get a grip on the crisis after going to an Elton John concert on Wednesday, the day after the shooting.
“While France was on fire, Macron was not at the side of his minister of the interior or the police, but he preferred to applaud Elton John,” said Thierry Mariani, an MEP for National Rally.
At least 667 people were arrested across France overnight on Thursday following a third day of protests over the death of the teenager – named in local reports as Nahel M.
Mr Macron said a third of the individuals arrested on Thursday were “young people, sometimes very young”, and that “it’s the parents’ responsibility” to keep their children at home.
“We sometimes have the feeling that some of them are living in the streets [of] the video games that have intoxicated them,” he said of rioters.
On Friday, following a second crisis meeting, France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin issued an order to stop buses and tram services at night.
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The Paris region already announced such a shutdown to protect transport workers and passengers. The city’s Metro system will also shut an hour earlier this weekend, following a request from local police.
The announcement came as looters ransacked shops, including an Apple store in the eastern French city of Strasbourg on Friday, according to local officials.
Concerts by Canadian-born French pop star Mylène Farmer – set to be held at Paris’ Stade de France stadium on Friday and Saturday night – have been cancelled due to the riots, according to an official from the Seine-Saint-Denis district.
On Thursday, 40,000 police officers were deployed across France – nearly four times the number mobilised on Wednesday.
French police stand in position as fireworks go off during clashes with youth on Thursday
However, there were few signs that appeals from the government to de-escalate the situation are having any effect.
In Nanterre, where the shooting took place, protesters torched cars, barricaded streets and hurled projectiles at police following a vigil.
Armoured police vehicles rammed through the charred remains of cars that had been flipped and set ablaze in the Paris suburb.
National police said on Thursday night that officers also faced new clashes in other areas of the country – in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse and Lille – including protesters starting fires and setting off fireworks.
Meanwhile, the police officer who shot and killed the teenager asked the family of the boy for forgiveness.
His lawyer Laurent-Franck Lienard told BFMTV: “The first words he pronounced were to say sorry and the last words he said were to say sorry to the family.
“He is devastated, he doesn’t get up in the morning to kill people. He didn’t want to kill him.”
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Mr Lienard added that his client’s detention was being used to try to calm rioters.
The teenager’s burial is scheduled for Saturday, according to Nanterre Mayor Patrick Jarry, who said the country needs to “push for changes” in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
“There’s a feeling of injustice in many residents’ minds, whether it’s about school achievement, getting a job, access to culture, housing and other life issues,” he said.
“I believe we are in that moment when we need to face the urgency [of the situation].”
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