No let-up in protests over teen’s killing in France, youths clash with cops, loot stores

Nanterre (France), July 1

Young rioters clashed with the police and looted stores in a fourth day of violence in France triggered by the deadly police shooting of a teen, piling more pressure on President Emmanuel Macron after he appealed to parents to keep children off the streets and blamed social media for fuelling unrest.

Despite repeated government appeals for calm and stiffer policing, Friday saw brazen daylight violence, too. An Apple store was looted in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where the police fired tear gas, and the windows of a fast-food outlet were smashed in a Paris-area shopping mall, where officers repelled people trying to break into a shuttered store, authorities said.

The southern port city of Marseille, initially spared the violence that broke out first in the Paris region, was experiencing its second night of upheaval. Even before nightfall, young people hurled projectiles, set fires, and looted shops, police said. They made almost 90 arrests.

On Friday evening, looters broke into a Marseille gun shop and made off with weapons, and a man was later arrested with a hunting rifle, the police said. The previous night, two off-duty officers suffered serious injuries, including one who was stabbed, when they were set upon by about 20 people, police said.

Authorities in the city of Lyon reported rioters again setting fires and pelting police in the suburbs. In the city centre, the police made 21 arrests to stop the attempted looting of shops after an unauthorised protest against police violence that drew about 1,300 people Friday evening.

Violence was also erupting in some of France’s territories overseas.

In French Guiana, a 54-year-old was killed by a stray bullet Thursday night when rioters fired at police in the capital, Cayenne, authorities said. On the small Indian Ocean island of Reunion, protesters set garbage bins ablaze, threw projectiles at police, and damaged cars and buildings, officials said. Some 150 officers were deployed there Friday night. AP