More than 400 people were arrested across France on Thursday, as a wave of protests swept the country for a third night following the fatal police shooting of a teenage boy. The unrest broke out Tuesday, June 27, hours after a police traffic stop in Nanterre resulted in the killing of 17-year-old Nahel as he attempted to drive away. France’s elite police force, the RAID, was deployed to the cities of Bordeaux, Lyon, Roubaix, Marseille and Lille, to help contain the protests. But clashes erupted between protesters and police in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, where the 17-year-old was killed. A bank was set on fire in Nanterre, according to photographs from the scene, and 15 people have been taken in for questioning by police after a march held in memory of the teenager turned violent. Protesters threw fireworks at police officers in Marseille, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
At least 421 people were arrested in the protests across France from Thursday night into Friday morning, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told BFMTV. More than half of those arrests took place in the Paris region, in the departments of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, BFMTV reported, citing Paris police.
Earlier, Darmanin said police were instructed to “intervene systematically” and expressed support for the police officers and firefighters who “are doing a courageous job.”President Emmanuel Macron will hold a crisis meeting Friday for the second day in a row following Thursday night’s violence, BFMTV reported. Authorities had hoped to avoid a repeat of the scenes that played out Wednesday night when police stations, town halls and schools were set alight in various cities and about 150 people were arrested. The Interior Ministry earlier said it planned on deploying 40,000 police officers across the country Thursday including 5,000 in Paris to quell any potential unrest.