The peaceful march organized this Thursday in Nanterre by the family of the 17-year-old who was shot dead by police on Tuesday in this suburb of Paris degenerated into violence, riots and clashes with security forces.
a riot police used tear gas to disperse protesters as some of them tried to break through protective barriersin particular with the City Hall building (government delegation), according to reports from international agencies.
The existence of any victims is unknown at this time.
French Interior Ministry spokesman Camille Chaize said the march had begun peacefully, but the situation later changed, with several vehicles, containers and street furniture set on fire.
This is reported by the town hall Nanterre, 6,200 people took part in the demonstration, called by the mother of the young man killed by the police, who carried banners with different slogans on them, such as “Justice for Nahel” or “The police kill”.
Other slogans were heard during the march, such as “killer police” It is chants demanding the resignation of the French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin.
Several leaders of the radical left party France Insubmissa (LFI), such as Raquel Garrido, Clémentine Autain, Alexis Corbière and Manon Aubry, as well as the national secretary of the French Communist Party (PCF), Fabien Roussel, announced their presence at the demonstration.
Nahel, 17, was killed at close range by a police officer last Tuesday as he attempted to flee a checkpoint in a sports Mercedes he was driving without a license and which had been impounded after committing several traffic violations.
The 38-year-old officer who killed him initially claimed he had used the weapon because he believed Nahel was a threat to his physical integrity and that of the colleague with whom he was doing traffic control.
However, the footage recorded by witnesses showed that the version of the facts presented by the officer was not confirmed and that the escape of the vehicle did not endanger the two police officers.
The French public prosecutor’s office has already asked for an indictment for the voluntary manslaughter of the agent, which was presented to two investigating judges, as well as preventive detention.
Tuesday’s events are at the root of the riots that have taken place in France over the past two nights, resulting in the arrest of more than 180 people and minor injuries of about 170 security forces officers, as well as fires in public buildings, such as town halls, schools, police stations and courts, and dozens of vehicles.
To bring the situation under control, the French Ministry of the Interior decided to mobilize around 40,000 police officers and gendarmes (militarized police) across the country in the next few hours, four times more than last night.
In the Paris region, it has been decided that from 21:00 local time (20:00 in Lisbon) all trams and buses will stop running. Several carriages in the Paris metro were set on fire during the riots.
Source: DN
