Parents, Call Your Children Home!

Still from video: Violent riots continue to erupt at night in the French capital of Paris and nearby suburbs after police shot and killed a 17-year-old driver on Tuesday. (Associated Press)

"At 1:30 a.m., while I was at the city hall like the past three nights, individuals rammed their car upon my residence before setting fire to it to burn my house, inside which my wife and my two young children slept."

"While trying to protect the children and escape the attackers, my wife and one of my children were injured."

"[I have] no words strong enough to describe my emotion towards the horror of this night [and thank police and rescue services for their help]". 

Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, commune in Paris southern suburbs

 

"[Initial findings of a police investigation suggest a flaming car] was launched to burn down the pavilion [entering Jeanbrun’s property at around 1:30am local time]."

"Hitting a low wall, the vehicle stopped… before it could reach the veranda of the house. Only the front gate was hit, along with the family’s vehicle."

"[The mayor’s wife and two children, aged 5 and 7, fled through the back garden. While running away, the mayor’s wife hurt her shin which] appears to be broken."

"Every effort will be made to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice."

Prosecutor Stéphane Hardouin  

A police officer enters the house of L'Hay-les-Roses mayor, outside Paris, Sunday, July 2, 2023. Young rioters clashed with police and targeted the mayor's home with a burning car as France saw a fifth night of unrest sparked by the police killing of a teenager Christophe Ena / AP

Parents of the rioting youth, mostly Black and those of Algerian heritage, have been urged by French President Emmanuel Macron to keep their teens at home. Restrictions on social media have been proposed, to help in the battle to quell rioting that has been steadily spreading across France in the wake of the fatal police shooting of the unlicensed 17-year-old driver who ran a red light and refused to stop for motorcycle traffic police. A confrontation took place when the youthful driver defied police orders to emerge from the yellow Mercedes he was driving.

 

Video footage captured two police officers confronting the youth, both holding guns. Sound on the video implicates both officers in the shooting to death of the defiant teen; one shooting him dead, the other encouraging the fatal shooting. The shooter is in custody, accused of what amounts to manslaughter. The shocking event triggered instant reaction from the Paris suburban areas known as banlieues, effectively ghettoes housing a poverty-stricken immigrant class that has failed to integrate into French culture and society.

 

Charges of racism in the past and lack of government interest in uplifting the banlieue residents from unemployment and poverty, saw the government spending millions of euros to improve public transit for the residents, to hire minority members for the police, to encourage youth to attend schools and universities, but none of these efforts have materially altered their prospects nor the culture of hostility and violence that runs rife through these  underprivileged communities.

 

The death of the 17-year-old Algerian teen has had an oversized impact on the wild nature of housing-project youth who welcome any opportunity to break out in paroxysms of violence, taking to the streets, setting vehicles and shops ablaze, looting and defying authority. The government has deployed upwards of 40,000 police officers responding to the rioters -- who have erected barricades, lit fires and shot fireworks at police -- with tear gas, water cannons and stun grenades. An estimated 270 police officers have been injured in these violent confrontations.

 

And some 3,000 rioters have been arrested for their part in the violent confrontations. No figures have been offered for the number of protesters injured. Although the declaration of a state of emergency was thought to be imminent after cabinet meetings and no cessation of the nightly riots, none was in fact declared although a complete shutdown of all public bus and tram services cross-country was ordered. That kind of transit shutdown to protect transportation workers and passengers had already been passed in the Paris region. 

 

Protesters march during a rally in Paris on Thursday night. (AP/Aurelien Morissard)

President Macron identified social media platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok as playing a "considerable role" in fuelling copycat acts of violence throughout the unrest taking place this week. A type of sympathy riot was said to have occurred in Sweden, where youth there of the same class emulated their French counterparts. Iran delighted in messaging France that it should take care not to overextend the violence it was committing against peaceful protesters.

"[A third of the individuals arrested were] young people, sometimes very young], it's the parents' responsibility [to keep their children at home."

"We sometimes have the feeling that some of them are living in the streets the video games that have intoxicated them."

President Emmanuel Macon

Armoured police vehicles rammed through charred remains of cars flipped and set ablaze in Nanterre, where the teen known as Nahel was shot to death last week. Pascal Prache, the Nanterre prosecutor explained that officers attempted to pull Nahel over because he appeared so young, driving a Mercedes with Polish licence plates in a bus lane, running a red light to avoid being stopped, before he got stuck in traffic.  

 

 Dozens of towns and cities across the country have experienced rioting, extending as far as Brussels, the capital of Belgium where several fires were brought under control and about a dozen rioters were detained. Groups of people hurled firecrackers at security forces in several of Paris neighborhoods. The 12th district police station was attacked, shops were looted along Rivoli street near the Louvre museum and at the forum des Halles, largest shopping mall in central Paris.

 

Bans were ordered on the sale and carrying of powerful fireworks. Sales of canisters of gasoline, acids and other chemicals and flammable liquids were also banned. And the end of the rioting is as yet nowhere in sight.

 

Firefighters extinguish burning vehicles during clashes between protesters and police after the death of Nahel M. in the Paris suburb of Nanterre in France on June 28, 2023. (Reuters/Stephanie Lecocq)