More than 400 people have been arrested across France as protests rock major cities for the third night following a d£adly police sh%%ting of a 17-year-old teenager of Algerian and Moroccan descent during a traffic stop.
The viol£nce began on Tuesday, June 27, after police sh%t d£ad the victim, named Nahel M, as he drove away from a traffic stop.
National police said on Thursday night, June 29, that its forces faced new incidents in the cities of Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse and Lille including fir£s and protesters hurling fireworks.
In Nanterre, the western suburb of Paris where the teenager was k#lled, protesters torched cars, barricaded streets and hurled projectiles at police following a peaceful vigil.
Protesters scrawled “Vengeance for Nahel” across buildings and bus shelters and, as night fell, a bank was set on fir£ before firefi¥hters put it out and stopped flames from spreading to an apartment building above. No one was reported to be hurt.
In central Paris, a Nike shoe store was ransacked and windows were sm@shed along the Rue de Rivoli shopping street, Paris police said.
There were also cl@shes reported between young people and police officers in the Belgian capital Brussels, where about 10 people were arrested on Thursday evening, and some of the city’s public transport operations were discontinued.
Belgian media showed images of a b¥rning car and police officers in riot gear. The Belgian news agency Belga reported that tensions were especially high around Brussels’ central Anneessens district.
Nahel’s mother earlier said she didn’t blame the whole police force _
— just the officer who fir£d the lethal sh%t
“He saw the face of an Arab, of a little kid, he wanted to take his life,” she said.
Meanwhile, the police officer who sh%t him has apologised to the family. He has been charged with voluntary hom#cide and his lawyer says he is “dev@stated”
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