Protests over the shooting death of Nahel by a police officer have continued this morning and, as has been happening since Tuesday, they have turned into a pitched war against the security forces. After two in the morning, the French Ministry of the Interior has reported at least 471 arrests nationwide.
In order to avoid the national chaos experienced on Thursday night, which ended with at least 500 assaulted buildings, 1,900 burned cars and almost 700 detainees in dozens of cities across the country, President Emmanuel Macron reinforced security this Friday with 45,000 police officers, deployment of armored vehicles and 29 helicopters.
At the same time, many transport lines were interrupted as of 9:00 p.m. and the curfew was maintained in some cities such as Lyon, Étouvie, Pierre-Rollin or Marivaux, among others. However, none of this has prevented violence from taking center stage again on Friday night and it is that, although it seems that in some points there were smaller groups of protesters, the acts of vandalism have been more serious.
While these days the riots were concentrated in Nanterre (town where Nahel lived) and Paris, tonight the epicenter of the violence has moved to Marseilles where, despite the ban on holding demonstrations, there are already more than 80 people arrested. Minister Gérald Darmanin has assured that he has sent “important reinforcements” to help control the situation.
In addition to the fires in the streets and attacks on the police, one of the most serious events in that southern city has been the brutal attack against two plainclothes officers. According to local media reports, they were recognized by a group of hooded men who attacked them. Currently, the police are still in the hospital and the case is being investigated as an attempted murder.
As in other parts of the country, in Marseille celebrations and events that were scheduled for the next few days, such as Pride, have been suspended.
Lyon has been another of the cities where the protests have been more intense. Despite the curfew, more than 1,300 people have taken to the streets and attacked the Rhône prefecture. Police have responded with tear gas to the fireworks they have used as a weapon.
Firearms
One of the authorities’ concerns is the increasingly dangerous weapons being used. While at first the demonstrators protested with Molotov cocktails or homemade weapons, in several places people have been seen carrying firearms. In Marseille a man has been arrested for stealing a rifle from an armory.
The riots have spread to Guyana, where the territorial director of the national police, Philippe Jos, has assured in statements to Liberation that “several firearms with live ammunition were pointed at police.” There, the first death due to the riots has been confirmed, precisely due to a stray bullet that allegedly came from the protesters.
“The Republic will win”
As he already did on Thursday, the minister darmanin He has closely followed all the altercations and has gone to Mantes-la-Jolie (Paris) “to meet the police and gendarmes once again to greet them and thank them for their extremely difficult work in this difficult period for our country.”
From there he has spoken live on the channel BFM-TV ensuring that although it is a quiet night in Ile-de-France, there has been “unacceptable violence in Lyon and Marseille”.
“It is the Republic that will win, not the rioters”, he declared, lamenting the young age of many rioters. “They are children of 13, 14 years (…) that obviously it is better that they are at home than walking the streets.”
“He Ministry of the Interior is ready to further increase its position of strength if things ever deteriorate, which is not the case tonight,” he added.
However, Darmanin has been cautious about the possibility of decreeing a state of emergency, a device that “has been enabled four times in sixty years”, and has recalled that in the face of a similar situation that occurred in 2005 after the deaths of Ziad Benna and Banou Traoré, the device was deployed on the tenth day.
“I am not confusing the few hundred, the few thousand criminals, unfortunately often very young, with the vast majority of our compatriots who live in working-class neighborhoods, who want to work and educate their children,” he concluded.
