The French Government has announced this Friday that 45,000 agents of the security forces have mobilized to prevent episodes of violence in the country during the next two nights (this Friday and Saturday).
In an interview with the evening news channel TF1, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced the mobilization of 45,000 police and gendarmes (militarized police), following the death of a 17-year-old boy of Algerian descent, shot by a police officer during a traffic control in Nanterre (on the outskirts of Paris), have sparked violent protests in recent nights in several French cities, with hundreds of protesters arrested across the country.
The Interior Minister denounced the violence as “absolutely unacceptable”, but ruled out the establishment of a state of emergency to calm the situation after the death of the young Nahel.
France experienced a third consecutive night of serious riots in many parts of the territory, which resulted in at least 250 injured police officers, 875 arrests -a third of whom were minors-, 492 public buildings attacked and 2,000 vehicles set on fire.
To avoid this type of episodes, the French Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, announced this Friday the deployment of armored vehicles of the militarized police, without specifying how many.
In an extraordinary meeting, the Minister of the Interior has decided this Friday to extend the restriction on the movement of buses and trams throughout the country, which will not be able to operate from 9:00 p.m. local time (8:00 p.m. in Lisbon) until the following morning , until new notice.
The sale of rockets for fireworks, gasoline cans, acids and other chemical and flammable products was also temporarily prohibited.
The death of Nahel, who will be buried on Saturday in the city of Nanterre -where he lived and where he was assassinated-, shocked a large part of the country and provoked strong condemnation from the left and social movements, considering that it was an act of racism. .
Protesters have attacked police and fire trucks, but also public buildings and shops, many of which have been looted.
A young man died this Friday afternoon after falling last night from the roof of a shop in northwestern France.
The versions of the police and the Public Ministry differ on the circumstances of the accident.
According to a police source, the fall of the young man occurred “in the context of looting” at a supermarket. The public prosecutor of Rouen (northwest), Frédéric Teillet, affirmed, for his part, that the store in question was not “the object of an attack by the demonstrators”.
Source: TSF
