Nanterre: Early on Friday morning, French protesters in some cities erected barricades, set fire to cars, and fired fireworks at police as tensions rose following the shocking police shooting death of a 17-year-old.

In the Nanterre neighbourhood of northwest Paris, where the teen, who is only being identified by his first name, Nahel, was shot by a police officer, armoured police vehicles ploughed through the burned-out remains of cars that had been overturned and set on fire. Protesters set fire to the city hall of the Clichy-Sous-Bois suburb on the other side of Paris.

Police in Marseille, a port city in the Mediterranean, reportedly tried to disperse violent gangs in the heart of the city.

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In order to put an end to the protests, which have engulfed the nation for three nights in a row, tens of thousands of police officers have been sent in. A spokesperson for the national police said that by midnight on Thursday, 100 people had been detained. As ongoing arrests were counted, it was anticipated that the number would increase.

The policeman accused of firing the weapon Prosecutor Pascal Prache announced Tuesday had been charged with voluntary homicide after concluding from his preliminary investigation that "the conditions for the legal use of the weapon were not met."

Gerald Darmanin, the interior minister, predicted that there would be 40,000 officers on the streets, 5,000 of whom would be stationed in the Paris area.
Darmanin declared, "The professionals of disorder must return home." Although a state of emergency has not yet been required, which was the action taken in 2005 to end weeks of rioting, he continued: "The state's response will be extremely firm."

Thursday had seen a gradual increase in tension.

A Molotov cocktail was thrown at a new police station in the normally quiet Pyrenees town of Pau in southwest France, according to national police. According to police, tramway train and vehicles were torched in a suburb of Lyon and Toulouse, respectively. The 40 arrests, some outside the largely peaceful teen memorial march and others inside, according to Paris police, were made by its officers.

In order to protect drivers and customers, bus and tram services in the Paris region stop operating before dusk.

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The 54,000-person town of Clamart, located in the southwest suburbs of Paris, announced that it was imposing an overnight curfew through Monday in response to "the risk of new public order disturbances." A similar curfew was announced by the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Marne, a town in the eastern suburbs.

The unrest even reached Brussels, the capital of Belgium and the EU's administrative centre, where about a dozen people were arrested during altercations related to the shooting in France. Multiple fires were put out and at least one car was burned, according to police spokeswoman Ilse Van de Keere.

The shooting, which was caught on camera, shocked France and raised previously dormant tensions between the police and youth living in housing projects and other underprivileged areas.

The teen's family and solicitors have not claimed that the police shooting was motivated by race, and they have withheld his surname and other personal information.
Nevertheless, anti-racism activists continued to criticise the actions of the police.

The leader of the anti-racism organisation SOS Racisme, Dominique Sopo, said, "We have to go beyond saying that things need to calm down." The question is, "How do we get a police force that doesn't tend to yell at Blacks and Arabs, use racial slurs against them, and in some cases shoot them in the head?"

The Nanterre prosecutor Prache claimed that because Nahel appeared so young and was travelling in a bus lane in a Mercedes with Polish licence plates, officers attempted to stop him. Allegedly, in an effort to avoid being stopped, he ran a red light and then got stuck in traffic. According to both officers involved, they pulled their weapons to stop him from escaping.

According to Prache, the officer who fired the single shot claimed he was afraid he, a fellow officer, or someone else might be struck by the car. The officers described feeling "threatened" as the car sped away.

As is customary in France, he claimed that two magistrates are in charge of the investigation. Investigating judges who have received preliminary charges have a strong suspicion of wrongdoing but need to look into it further before proceeding with the trial.

Protesters in Nanterre fired fireworks and stones at police on Wednesday night as street violence flared for a second straight night. Police responded by firing a series of volleys of tear gas.

Police and firefighters struggled to control protesters and put out fires as demonstrations spread to other towns. According to a national police spokesperson, schools, police stations, town halls, and other public buildings were damaged from Toulouse in the south to Lille in the north, with the majority of the damage occurring in the Paris suburbs.

The town hall in the L'Ile-Saint-Denis neighbourhood of Paris, which is close to the national stadium and the Paris 2024 Olympics headquarters, was damaged by fire.

Darmanin reported that although 170 officers had been hurt during the unrest, none of the wounds were life-threatening. The number of injured civilians was not immediately disclosed.

The scenes in the suburbs of France brought back memories of the riots that erupted in suburban housing projects that were neglected and plagued by crime in 2005 following the deaths of 15-year-old Bouna Traoré and 17-year-old Zyed Benna. After hiding from the police in a power substation in the Clichy-sous-Bois neighbourhood of Paris, the two boys were electrocuted.

On Thursday, Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, called an urgent security meeting to discuss the violence.

At the start of the meeting, Macron declared that "these acts are totally unjustifiable," with the goal of securing trouble spots and making plans for the days ahead "so full peace can return."

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Compared to the US, France uses firearms more rarely, but there have been a number of deaths and injuries at the hands of French police in recent years, raising calls for greater accountability. In response to the Minnesota police killing of George Floyd, there were demonstrations against racial profiling and other forms of injustice in France as well.

According to a police spokesperson, last year, police fatally shot 13 people who refused to cooperate with traffic stops. Three people, including Nahel, have perished in comparable circumstances this year.