France to suspend all bus and tram services amid riots over police shooting
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France will suspend all bus and tram services at night, amid ongoing riots over a police shooting.
Violent protests are spreading throughout France after a 17-year-old was shot by police during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday.
In the aftermath, people have taken to the streets on three consecutive nights to protest, setting cars alight and throwing stones and fireworks.
President Emmanuel Macron has urged parents to keep teenagers at home to limit rioting in French cities.
He also blamed social media for fuelling copycat violence and said it had played a “significant role in the events of the past few days”.
Speaking in televised remarks from a crisis meeting, he mentioned TikTok and Snapchat in particular.
Mr Macron, meanwhile, has been urged to get a grip on the crisis after going to an Elton John concert on Wednesday, the day after the shooting.
“While France was on fire, Macron was not at the side of his minister of the interior or the police, but he preferred to applaud Elton John,” said Thierry Mariani, an MEP for National Rally.
At least 667 people were arrested across France overnight on Thursday following a third day of protests over the death of the teenager – named in local reports as Nahel M.
Mr Macron said a third of the individuals arrested on Thursday were “young people, sometimes very young”, and that “it’s the parents’ responsibility” to keep their children at home.
Police say at least 875 people have been arrested since the riots began.
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On Friday, looters ransacked shops including an Apple store in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, according to local officials.
On Thursday, 40,000 police officers were deployed across France – nearly four times the number mobilised on Wednesday.
However, there were few signs that appeals from the government to de-escalate the situation are having any effect.
In Nanterre, where the shooting took place, protesters torched cars, barricaded streets and hurled projectiles at police following a vigil.
National police said on Thursday night that officers also faced new incidents in other areas of the country – in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse and Lille, including fires and fireworks.
Meanwhile, the police officer who shot and killed the teenager asked the family of the boy for forgiveness.
His lawyer Laurent-Franck Lienard told BFMTV: “The first words he pronounced were to say sorry and the last words he said were to say sorry to the family.
“He is devastated, he doesn’t get up in the morning to kill people. He didn’t want to kill him.”
Mr Lienard added that his client’s detention was being used to try to calm rioters.
