The police carried out 994 arrests throughout France overnight from Friday to Saturday, the Interior Ministry announced. A record figure, even if this fourth night of violence following the death of young Nahel on Tuesday June 27 during a police check in Nanterre, was of a “less” intensity than the previous one.
If a very important device – no less than 45,000 police officers – made it possible to contain the violence, the balance sheet of the new night of riots remains heavy. There were “79 police officers and gendarmes injured”, some 1,350 vehicles burned and 234 buildings burned or degraded. About 2,560 fires have been recorded on public roads, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
Marseille, in particular, had a restless night, prompting the Minister of the Interior to send reinforcements there. Traveling to the northwest of Paris, Gérald Darmanin reported in the middle of the night violence of a “less intensity” with already 471 arrests at the national level and pockets of tension in particular in Marseille, Lyon or Grenoble. In these last two cities, clashes opposed police and gangs of young people, often hooded, until late at night, moving around or on scooters and firing dozens of mortars towards the first, who responded with tear gas canisters.
Damage and fires
In the 4th arrondissement of Lyon, near the city center, a complaint post “was the subject of intrusion and damage”, according to the prefecture. In Vénissieux, the CRS were attacked by dozens of people, and the clashes also spread to several other localities including Villeurbanne (east) or Givors (south). In Grenoble, 28 people were also arrested, the prefecture said overnight, also reporting violence in Echirolles, on the outskirts.
Nine people were arrested in Dijon and Beaune (Côte-d’Or), 16 cars were set on fire and a bakery was vandalized in Beaune. Violence also occurred in Mâcon, Saint-Etienne, Sens, Auxerre, Saint-Florentin, Joigny, Migennes and Tonnerre, or in Albertville and Chambéry in Savoie. In Yonne, “several police stations and gendarmerie brigades were targeted without significant damage being caused”. In Saint-Florentin, a DIY store was set on fire.
Funeral this Saturday
The Paris region was also not spared: three towns near the capital have also decided to establish a curfew, like other towns in the provinces. In Nanterre, a town in the Paris region where Nahel M., 17, was killed by a police officer on Tuesday during a roadside check, residents are preparing for the young man’s funeral this Saturday. “Saturday, July 1 will be a day of recollection for Nahel’s family,” wrote the family’s lawyers, calling on the media not to attend the ceremony in order “to grant the bereaved families privacy and the respect they need”.
Even before these funerals, the Minister of the Interior had announced “more specialized units” such as the RAID and the GIGN, elite troops of the police and the gendarmerie. Gendarmerie light armored vehicles were also sent in to try to lower tensions compared to the previous night, when 492 buildings were targeted, 2,000 vehicles burned and dozens of stores looted.
“The time of violence must end to give way to that of mourning, dialogue and reconstruction”, urged the players of the French football team, in a press release relayed by captain Kylian Mbappé.