According to a report from the Senate Law Committee, the cost of the damage linked to urban violence which followed the death of Nahel, shot dead by the police while driving his car after refusing to comply in June 2023, is estimated at billion euros. A quantified and heavy toll: 50,000 rioters aged on average around twenty years old, 2,500 buildings affected. The significant role of social networks in the escalation of events has been highlighted.
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For the commission, social networks played a decisive role. They allowed rioters to form groups, communicate online and arrange meetings using geolocation. We think, for example, of TikTok or Snapchat.
One billion euros in material damage is four times more than during the last major urban riots in France, in 2005. Beyond the logistical dimension of the networks, the commission of inquiry estimates that social networks have favored a race towards degradation.
The senators even speak of competition between rioters, made possible by these broadcasts of widely relayed videos, with the death of Nahel as a trigger, then the feeling of social relegation, and social networks as amplifiers of violence. To avoid a new episode of riots, they propose blocking certain network functionalities during a state of emergency, such as geolocation or the broadcast of live images.
The 25 proposals detailed in the report also include the supervision of fireworks mortars, the systematic equipment of pedestrian cameras for the police and access for information to private messaging services used by rioters, in the event of peak of violence.
In eleven days of riots, more than a thousand people were injured, including 782 law enforcement officers, and 16,400 claims were declared to insurers, for an amount of 793 million euros.
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