SONNA – Unrest continued in France for a second night as security forces deployed in their thousands to quell protests over the killing of a 17-year-old boy by police, which French President Emmanuel Macron described as “inexcusable” while pleading for calm as justice took its course.
Approximately 2,000 riot police were called up in suburbs around Paris on Wednesday night following the fatal, point-blank range shooting on Tuesday morning of the teenager during a traffic check in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
Protesters set fire to rubbish bins and fireworks were set off in Nanterre on Wednesday night, as well as in other communes of the Hauts-de-Seine region to the west of Paris, and in the eastern city of Dijon. In the Essonne region to the south of the capital, a group of people set a bus on fire after having all the passengers get off, police said.
In the southern city of Toulouse, several cars were torched and responding police and firefighters were pelted with projectiles as thick black smoke billowed high into the sky, a police source said.
About 16 people were arrested across the country, police said shortly after midnight on Wednesday.
Anger over the killing spawned unrest in multiple towns around Paris on Tuesday night. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 31 people were arrested, 24 police officers injured and 40 cars burned overnight on Tuesday and into the early hours of Wednesday.
