INDEPENDENT
The stones and fireworks flew towards the police from the hands of protesters, and it was not long before vehicles were ablaze – acrid black smoke drifting into the air and mixing with the tear gas released into the crowds by officers.
“This is war”, said one protester as he loaded his pockets from a flower bed in preparation for the advancing police. These were the latest clashes in a spate of violence stretching into a third evening in the wake of a teenager shot dead by police during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
The officer involved in the shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M is facing preliminary charges of voluntary homicide and was placed under arrest, as President Emmanuel Macron struggles to contain spiralling public anger over the killing.
There have been more than 180 arrests, with around 40,000 officers deployed across France on Thursday evening to quell any further clashes, with around 5,000 in the Paris suburbs alone.
Local authorities in Clamart, about five miles from central Paris, imposed a nighttime curfew until Monday. Valerie Pecresse, who heads the greater Paris region, said all bus and tram services were halted after 9pm as people prepared for more violent protests.
“It’s millions of euros of public service gone up in smoke, it’s millions of public money from working-class neighbourhoods,” Ms Pecresse said of the clashes. “It’s irresponsible, it’s wrong, and it has to stop…
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