Get free French policy updates
We will send you a file myFT Daily Digest Rounding email to the latest French politics News every morning.
Riots broke out across France for a fourth night following the police shooting of a 17-year-old driver of North African origin as his family was preparing to bury him on Saturday in his hometown of Nanterre.
The Interior Ministry said 1,311 arrests were made overnight compared to 875 Thursday night, and indicated that the ferocity of the protests was waning.
In a sign of how seriously the government is taking the demonstrations, President Emmanuel Macron canceled a state visit to Germany that was scheduled to start on Sunday because he “wants to stay in France in the coming days,” the Elysee Palace reported Saturday.
Rioters caused massive damage, with cars and buildings set on fire, looting rampant in Marseille and around Paris, and dozens of attacks on police stations.
“We can assume that the events were less severe overnight,” Gerald Darmanin, the home secretary, told BFMTV news channel early Saturday morning. Seventy-nine police officers were injured on Friday night, compared to 249 on Thursday.
He said that the spread of armored vehicles and helicopters and 45,000 policemen, as well as the high number of arrests, caused a “psychological shock” that deterred people from rioting.
The government said the average age of the people arrested on Friday was 17.
The killing, on Tuesday, of Nael, whose last name was not released, sparked a wave of anger in the Paris suburb where he used to live, spreading to cities and towns across France.
This has exacerbated tensions between police and youth in low-income areas housing minorities and immigrants, who face racial profiling by police and discrimination in housing and job opportunities, according to the report. Official studies.
The unrest poses a major challenge for Macron, who has called for calm and also called the shooting “inexplicable and unforgivable”. He was seeking a transition after months of protests over his unpopular pension reform by relaunching legislative priorities and by being more active on the diplomatic front.
His government has been criticized by far-right leader Marine Le Pen for being too soft on troublemakers and soft on crime, while far-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon said police violence must stop.
Prosecutors filed preliminary murder charges against one of the two officers allegedly involved in the shooting, and placed him in pre-trial detention, a rare step in such cases.
Public buses and trams were closed overnight to prevent them from being targeted and burned, while some towns imposed a curfew.
French soccer captain Kylian Mbappe and the national team tried to convince the protesters to stop the violence.
“Many of us are from working-class neighborhoods, and we too share this feeling of pain and sadness,” they wrote on Mbappe’s Twitter account. However, they criticized “self-destruction”, adding, “Your properties you destroy, your neighborhoods, your cities”.