French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the violent clashes and unrest over the police killing of a teenager, which spread beyond Paris’s suburbs on Wednesday night.
The acts of violence, which included attacks on and fires set to public buildings, was “unjustifiable,” Macron said ahead of a crisis meeting held on Thursday, Agence France-Presse reported.
Around 150 people were arrested across the country in the second night of clashes. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin denounced attacks on schools, local town halls and police stations in a tweet. He’s heading Thursday to the Seine-Saint-Denis department, just north of Paris, where a town hall was set on fire last night.
Government spokesman Olivier Veran also criticized the protests’ violent turn.
“The reactions from last night aren’t reactions that seek to fix or bring justice,” Veran said on BFM TV. “They’re reactions that aim to attack the republic.”
Nahel, 17, was shot at close range in the western suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday. Video on social media showed two police officers leaning into a car, with one of them shooting as the driver pulls away.
Veran said it was “important” that the images posted online be used by investigating authorities.
The tragedy throws a spotlight on French policing that will be politically difficult for Macron to manage. The situation has echoes of 2005, when riots broke out for weeks in suburbs across France after two boys died in an electricity substation following a police chase.
A spokesman for the police union Alliance said on France Info radio on Thursday that he couldn’t recall clashes as widespread since 2005. French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne canceled a trip to the French region of Vendée scheduled for later in the day.
A series of high-profile football stars, celebrities and political leaders have expressed outrage over the killing.
“A bullet in the head...It’s always the same people for whom being in the wrong leads to death,” French national team player Mike Maignan wrote on Twitter.
Nahel’s mother has called for a march to be held in Nanterre on Thursday afternoon.
(Updates with comments from Macron, other government officials from first paragraph.)
