New Delhi: The violent protests in France after a 17-year-old, Nahel was shot point-blank on Tuesday during a traffic stop that was captured on video show no signs of abating. French police are bracing for more violent protests.
According to an internal security note, the coming nights are expected “to be the theatre of urban violence” with “actions targeted at the forces of order and the symbols of the state”, news agency AFP reported quoting a police source.
Clamart, a Paris suburb, has already declared an overnight curfew from Thursday until next Monday.
“I don’t blame the police, I blame one person: the one who took the life of my son,” Nahel’s mother, Mounia, told the France 5 channel in her first media interview since the shooting.
She said the 38-year-old officer responsible, who was detained and charged Thursday with voluntary manslaughter, “saw an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life.”
A memorial march for Nahel, led by his mother, ended with riot police firing tear gas as several cars were set alight in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre where he lived and was killed. Cars, bins, schools and government offices were torched Wednesday night around Paris and in other cities, while some 150 people were arrested nationwide. As part of measures to restore calm, Paris bus and tram services were halted after 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) Thursday, the region’s president said.
President Emmanuel Macron has called for calm and said the protest violence was “unjustifiable”.
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