(CN) — France was in the midst of spiraling social unrest on Thursday after a second night of riots in French cities and towns following the police shooting of a 17-year-old driver of North African roots.
Schools, town halls, post offices, bus depots and other public buildings were targeted and damaged by mostly rioting youths in France's so-called banlieues, suburban areas where many low-income residents have ties to former French colonies and satellite states.
The eruption of anger brought back fears the country is on the cusp of a repeat of the devastating urban riots that rocked France for three weeks in 2005. That outbreak of anger dramatically exposed racism, unemployment and police brutality experienced by many Muslims and immigrants in French society. But 18 years later, residents of banlieues complain of the same grievances.
Events on Thursday were escalating quickly following a night of violence that left about 130 police officers and gendarmes injured. Scores of protesters were injured too though it remained unclear how many.
There is an estimated millions of dollars of property damage. Rioters torched a town hall in Garges-lès-Gonesse, a suburb of Paris.
Elsewhere around the capital, 11 buses were set on fire, two trams attacked and at least one tram line burned after rioters threw Molotov cocktails. Two tram lines were also disrupted.
Schools were lit on fire in La Verrières, a district outside Paris. In Essonne, another district outside Paris, a bus and an administrative office were set ablaze. In nearby Brétigny-sur-Orge, a police station was attacked. Public buildings, cars and property was damaged in roughly 22 municipalities across France, including Amiens, Lille, Nice, Nantes and Lyon.
There is more chaos expected Thursday night, and the interior ministry deployed more than 40,000 police officers to counter rioters across the country.
The epicenter of the tumult was in Nanterre, a Parisian suburb where Nahel M., a 17-year-old of reportedly Algerian roots, was shot Wednesday morning by a motorcycle police officer after he allegedly refused to obey orders to stop his vehicle.
Pascal Prache, a public prosecutor in Nanterre, said two motorcycle officers observed Nahel driving recklessly and then engaged in a chase with his vehicle before one of the officers, standing next to the bright yellow new Mercedes-Benz car with Polish license plates, shot him through the driver's window when he drove off.
Still, Prache said the officer's use of a weapon was unwarranted and that the officer now faces voluntary homicide charges. The 38-year-old officer, who remains unidentified, was put on administrative leave and remanded into custody.
Le Figaro, a French conservative newspaper citing anonymous sources, reported that Nahel had a criminal record. Two others were in the vehicle, one of whom fled the scene and was still being sought by police. There were no drugs or alcohol found in Nahel's car, Prache said.
In Nanterre, Nahel's mother, Mounia, led about 6,000 people atop a flatbed truck in a march to honor her son's memory and demand justice. She wore a white T-shirt that read “Justice for Nahel” and listed the date of his death below. Marchers, including national and local politicians, expressed anger at police brutality and impunity.
“We demand that the judiciary does its job, otherwise we’ll do it our way,” a neighbor of Nahel’s family told Reuters at the march.
At the end of the march, clashes erupted when the march reached Nanterre's courthouse and protesters began hurling projectiles at police. Security forces dispersed the crowds with tear gas, videos showed. Paris announced a closure of some transportation lines Thursday night and two Parisian districts imposed curfews.
The chaos is deeply troubling for French President Emmanuel Macron, who was already struggling in his second term in the Élysée after losing his parliamentary majority and sparking widespread anger among the French by pushing through pension cuts without parliamentary approval.
The president convened a crisis meeting of his cabinet Thursday morning before he headed off for a summit of European Union leaders in Brussels.
On Wednesday, Macron sparked outcries from his rivals on the right when he called the shooting “inexplicable and unforgivable.” On Thursday, Macron denounced the violence, calling it “unjustifiable,” and asked for calm. But he added that the country needed to “meditate” on Nahel's killing.
Olivier Véran, an Élysée spokesman, told BFMTV, a French broadcaster, that the French nation was responsible for “killing this young man.”
“Justice is doing its job,” Veran said to counter arguments from far-right leaders, led by Marine Le Pen of the National Rally, that Macron had hijacked the judicial process by declaring the killing “unforgivable.”
Meanwhile, Macron's interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, vowed to take a hard line on the rioters. Darmanin is a right-wing politician Macron appointed to the ministry following the devastating “yellow vests” protests in 2018.
Darmanin is a controversial figure because of his heavy-handed tactics in suppressing demonstrations and breaking up migrant camps and for an aggressive approach toward Muslim groups deemed a threat to national security. He also has spearheaded laws giving police more powers and protection, including fewer restrictions on using lethal weapons.
“It's not the republic that will back down, but the thugs,” Darmanin told reporters. He expressed “disgust” at the attacks on public buildings such as schools and post offices. He said the attackers were hurting people in their own working-class neighborhoods.
“The state's response will be extremely firm, public order will be restored this evening,” Darmanin said.
“The death of young Nahel is a tragedy and I understand the emotion it arouses,” said French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne. But she added that “nothing justifies the violence which occurred last night … to attack the symbols of the republic is absolutely intolerable and it is first and foremost the inhabitants of the cities who are penalized.”
Right-wing political parties are demanding even stronger actions by the government, including a declaration of a state of emergency. In 2005, then-President Jacques Chirac was forced to declare a state of emergency to quell the riots.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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