Police are responsible for the shooting death of a 17-year-old teenager near Paris on Tuesday charged with intentional manslaughter on Thursday and placed in protective custodyannounced the French public prosecutor (MP).
“The police officer referred today as part of an inquest for willful homicide has been charged with this offense and is being held in preventive detention,” the MP said in a press release.
Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache said his initial investigation led him to that conclusion “the conditions for the legal use of the weapon were not respected”.
Under French law, preliminary charges mean that Investigating judges have strong grounds to suspect misconduct, but allow time for further investigation before making a decision on whether or not to refer the case to court.
The murder of the teen, identified only by his first name, Nahel, took place Tuesday during a traffic operation. The videotaped incident shocked the country and sparked tensions between police and youths in residential and deprived areas.
The French government on Thursday vowed to restore order after two nights of urban violence following the deadly gunfire, announcing it would deploy tens of thousands of police officers and crack down on neighborhoods where buildings and vehicles were set on fire.
In answer, the city of Clamart, in the Paris region, with a population of 54,000, announced in a statement this Thursday a mandatory curfew between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. local time (8 p.m. and 5 a.m. in Lisbon), which will last until weekend.
The council pointed to “the risk of further public order disturbances” to justify this decision, after two nights of urban unrest. “Clamart is a safe and quiet town, we are determined to keep it that way”says the statement.
Several members of the executive went to areas affected by the sudden outbreak of rioting, calling for calm but also warning that the violence that injured dozens of police officers and damaged nearly 100 public buildings could not continue.
After a crisis meeting, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Thursday that the number of police deployed would more than quadruple, from 9,000 to 40,000. In the Paris region alone, the number of seconded agents would more than double to 5,000.
“Professional rioters need to go home,” Darmanin said, though it was not yet necessary to declare a state of emergency – a measure taken to quell weeks of unrest in 2005 – adding only: “The response of the state will be extraordinarily resolute”.
French President Emmanuel Macron, for his part, this Thursday found the “scenes of violence” against the “institutions of the Republic” unjustifiable.
Source: DN
