French mayors hold anti-riot rallies as violence eases

PARIS — Mayors across France held rallies on Monday calling for an end to the violence that erupted after a teen was shot and killed by police last week, as signs emerged that the unrest was beginning to ease.

The government has battled riots and looting since 17-year-old Nahel M. was shot dead by a police officer during a traffic stop on Tuesday, reviving long-standing accusations of racism against the French police.

Monday's demonstrations calling for a "return to republican order" came after the home of the mayor of a Paris suburb was rammed by a burning car, prompting widespread outrage.

"Democracy itself has been attacked... this can't continue and it won't," said Vincent Jeanbrun, the conservative mayor of L'Hay-les-Roses, whose home was attacked early Sunday.

The interior ministry again deployed 45,000 police and gendarmes nationwide overnight Sunday to Monday to quell the unrest, the same figure as the previous two nights.

They arrested a total of 157 people — a fraction of the number held the night before. Three police officers were also hurt.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the average age of the 3,200 people arrested since the rioting began was 17, though some were "children, there is no other word, of 12 or 13".

"The nights have been tough for residents since Tuesday," when Nahel was killed, said Patrick Jarry, the mayor of Nanterre just west of Paris where the teen of Algerian origin lived.

"The string of violent episodes is unacceptable," he added, as he called for calm.

All bus and tram services in the Paris region remain suspended from 9 pm (19:00 GMT).

But in a move which could spark fresh anger, a collection for the family of the policeman who fired the fatal shot — now charged with voluntary manslaughter — topped 1 million euros ($1.1 million).

Politicians from the ruling centrist party condemned the collection — organised by a far-right figure — as "indecent" and dangerous, with hard-left MP Mathilde Panot tweeting that "killing a young North African in France in 2023 can earn you a lot of money".

Mayor Jeanbrun’s home was rammed with a burning car, with his wife breaking her leg as she escaped with her children aged five and seven.

The attack was condemned across the spectrum, with prosecutors opening an attempted murder investigation.

“I never would have imagined that my family would be threatened with death,” Jeanbrun told French television.

And Nadia, the grandmother of Nahel, said Sunday that rioters were only using his death as a “pretext” and called for calm.

Although the violence appears to be diminishing, questions remain about the event that sparked it.

Investigators on Monday began interviewing a passenger in the car Nahel was driving without a licence, a security source told AFP.

Some also urged that lessons need to be learned from the unrest — the worst in France since the death of two youths fleeing police in 2005 sparked three weeks of rioting.

“I can’t support people smashing and burning things, who would?” said Fatiha Abdouni, 52, founder of a women’s association in Nahel’s home town Nanterre.

Nevertheless, “now we have to listen to the young people, their frustration and anger”, she added.

Youths in Paris’ deprived suburbs face “daily difficulties, unequal access to study, to work, to housing”, Abdouni said — needing only the “spark” of Nahel’s death to trigger the violence.

Tens of millions of euros in emergency support was meanwhile released to repair public buildings and small businesses around Paris and in two other regions.

‘Understand the reasons’ 

The protests present a fresh crisis for President Emmanuel Macron, who had been hoping to press on with pledges for his second term after seeing off months of demonstrations that erupted in January over raising the retirement age.

Meeting key ministers late Sunday, Macron gave an order for “longer-term work to understand in depth the reasons that led to these events”, a presidential official said.

He will meet the heads of the two chambers of parliament on Monday, and the mayors of more than 220 towns hit by the unrest on Tuesday, the Elysee said.

The latest unrest has raised concerns abroad, with France hosting the Rugby World Cup in September and the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.

Macron postponed a state visit to Germany that had been scheduled to begin on Sunday in an indication of the gravity of the situation at home.