French President Emmanuel Macron postponed his state visit to Germany, scheduled for Sunday and Tuesday, due to unrest in the country following the death of a young man at the hands of the police.
“French President Macron spoke today by phone with German President Steinmeier and briefed him on the situation in his country. President Macron asked for the postponement of his planned state visit to Germany,” the German presidency said in a statement quoted by AFP. .
Last Tuesday, Nahel, a 17-year-old young man of Arab origin, was shot dead by a police officer as he tried to escape from a police checkpoint in Nanterre, on the outskirts of Paris.
The images of the French teenager shot dead by the police, registered by witnesses, provoked strong indignation in France, which degenerated into riots, especially in the popular neighborhoods of large cities and in the metropolitan belt of Paris.
The French Ministry of the Interior updated this Saturday from 994 to 1,311 the total number of arrests made on Friday linked to the riots that have ravaged France since Tuesday.
On Friday, the French government sent around 45,000 police across the country to try to control the violence, but was unable to stop young protesters from clashing overnight with police forces, setting around 2,500 fires, looting stores and injured 79 officers.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, “79 police officers and gendarmes were injured”, some 1,350 vehicles were set on fire, 234 buildings were burned or damaged, and some 2,560 fires were recorded on public roads.
Marseille, the second largest city in the south of France, had a restless night, prompting French Interior Minister Gérard Darmanin to send reinforcements to the city.
The police had already registered 88 arrests around 02:00 (01:00 in Lisbon) since the beginning of the night, with groups of young people often masked and “very mobile”.
Nahel’s funeral ceremonies began this Saturday with a private wake, followed by a ceremony at the mosque and burial in a local cemetery.
“Saturday, July 1, will be a day of mourning for the Nahel family,” the family’s lawyers wrote, appealing to the media not to participate in the ceremony, “to give the grieving family the privacy and respect you need.”
Source: TSF
