France revolts after police shoot teenager
Last night, two young men calling themselves “avengers” pulled rubbish bins across from a nearby estate in Paris to throw into a burning barricade. “We are sick of being treated like this,” they told France24. “This is for Nahel, we are Nahel”. They were referring to a 17 year-old who was shot by police at a traffic stop in Nanterre, west of Paris, this week, which has led to two nights of violent riots across the country. Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, summoned his ministers to a crisis meeting this morning after 150 people were arrested last night; town halls, schools and police stations were set on fire or attacked, according to the country’s interior minister. Some of the public anger is down to how the incident was reported – initial accounts from anonymous police sources claimed the driver had ploughed into officers, but those were quickly contradicted by a video of the shooting which showed a police officer firing as the car pulled away. The officer has been taken into custody for questioning; Macron called the shooting “inexcusable”.
Photograph Zakaria Abdelkafi/AFP via Getty Images