About a week after riots protesting the killing of a young man of Algerian origin, Nael Marzouki, the French Ministry of the Interior announced today (Monday) that less than 160 people were arrested overnight. It reported that 157 people were arrested overnight, compared to 700 the night before and more than 1,300 on Friday night.
The ministry pointed out that provisional figures indicate that three of the 45,000 policemen deployed at night were injured, and that about 350 buildings and 300 cars were damaged.
And political observers said that the relative calm that followed the nights of violence and tumultuous riots gave the government of French President Emmanuel Macron a chance to breathe in its battle to regain control of the situation, a few months after widespread protests over the unpopular pension reform and a year before hosting the Olympic Games. summer.
Yesterday (Sunday), the grandmother of the young man who was killed by the police in a suburb of Paris called for an end to the riots that broke out across the country because of his killing.
Since last Tuesday’s incident, rioters have set cars on fire, looted shops and targeted municipal headquarters and other buildings, including the home of the mayor of a Paris suburb. The violence began after calls on social media, during which many storefronts were smashed, while police officers had to repeatedly disperse aggressive, masked youths who threw stones and Molotov cocktails at them.
The young man, Nael, was killed by a bullet in the chest fired by a policeman at close range during a traffic check in the suburb of Nanterre, west of Paris. The 38-year-old arrested policeman was charged with premeditated murder.
His killing sparked a shock in France, which echoed in Algeria, from which his family hails.
