French cities have experienced a second night of violence following the shooting dead of a 17 year old youth named as Nahel M.
He was shot dead by police after attempting to drive away from a traffic check. Nanterre is a dangerous high crime banlieue to the north west of the centre of Paris, and is heavily populated by people of north African origin.
President Emmanuel Macron responded by describing the shooting, which some claim video evidence proves took place at point blank range, as “unforgivable.” This has been criticised by others who regard it as providing encouragement to the rioters who have taken to the streets in Nanterre and other cities across France.
Videos show trams, trucks and cars being set alight, as well as attacks on local municipal buildings and fireworks and Molotov cocktails being launched against police and other targets. Some footage appears to show a rioter holding a pump action shotgun,
The Alliance Police union of officers have demanded that the police involved ought to be given the benefit of innocence until proven guilty, while another police association Unité SGP has condemned what it described as political interference that was encouraging hatred of and violence against the police.
A third police union, France Police, was forced to removed a tweet which referred to the failure of Nahel’s parents to “educate their son.”
While the political left has predictably taken the side of those condemning the shooting as evidence of police brutality and racism, with some echoing the call of the dead youth’s mother to take to the streets and stage a revolt in protest, other on social media have implied that the dead youth and those arrested with him in the vehicle were “delinquents.”
The leader of Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen, claimed that the incident and the riots that have followed are another example of what she described as the lack of respect for the police.
The scale of the violence that has taken place, which has become a regular occurrence in French cities in recent years, and is not the first instance in 2023, has also prompted some to highlight one of the scare tactics of Le Pen’s opponents in the Presidential election who claimed that if she was elected that it would lead to social breakdown.
Residents of Nanterre and other parts of France will be hoping that the riots – which were still continuing at 4am – will be brought under control or literally burn themselves out. The state will be hoping that they are confined to the worst of the banlieue and do not spread into more settled areas.
In which case, Macron’s words of sympathy might be passed off as a successful if cynical gambit. However, like all gambits it may only have a limited lifespan given the growing crisis and contradictions both in France and across the rest of western Europe in the face of the failure to assimilate and accommodate growing migrant populations even into second and third generations.
