French President Emmanuel Macron urged parents to keep teenagers at home to quell rioting spreading across France and blamed social media for fuelling violence triggered by the deadly police shooting of a year-old. After a second crisis meeting with senior ministers, Macron today said around a third of the people arrested overnight for rioting were 'young, or very young'. He also claimed social media is playing a 'considerable role' in the spreading unrest and called on firms such as Snapchat and TikTok to remove sensitive content from their sites.
But the French president failed to address the backlash over a clip that emerged of him dancing the night away at an Elton John concert while rioters took to the streets again for a third successive night on Thursday. He was filmed at Paris's Accor Arena, watching the singer on his farewell tour, while rioters caused mayhem in the capital following the fatal shooting of a French-Algerian year-old identified as Nahel on Tuesday.
Gangs were filmed pillaging shops last night - targeting Zara and Nike stores as well as the high-end shopfront next to the Louvre and the Jardin des Tuileries. Shocking images taken of the aftermath this morning showed the husks of dozens of burned-out vehicles being hauled away or cordoned off, with storefronts and municipal buildings showing signs of major damage. French Scientific Police inspect the area after buses were burned overnight at a public transport site in Aubervilliers, near Paris.
Violence broke out all over France after police shot dead Nahel, a year-old, during a traffic stop in Nanterre on 27 June. Workers repair traffic lights next to burned cars loaded onto a towing truck in the Aubiers neighbourhood in Bordeaux, south-western France on late June 30, Burned cars line the street at the foot of the Pablo Picasso estate in Nanterre, west of Paris on June 30, French President Emmanuel Macron addresses a interministerial crisis unit Cellule interministerielle de crise - CIC meeting after riots erupted for the third night in a row across the country.
Protesters clash with police, following the death of Nahel, a year-old teenager killed by an officer during a traffic stop. Last night, as the officer responsible for the death of Nahel, 17, was remanded in custody charged with murder, mobs stormed into the Chatelet shopping complex close to Notre Dame Cathedral. There were similar scenes in cities and towns across France in the early hours of Friday morning, particularly in the southern city of Marseille. Protesters erected barricades, set cars ablaze and shot fireworks at police as tensions grew.
