Riots in France: Rioters set fire to French mayor’s house, his family flees through backyard

Paris: The mayor’s home in a Paris suburb was attacked and set on fire as his wife and children gathered during nationwide unrest after a police officer shot and killed a teenager on Tuesday, an official said on Sunday. were sleeping inside.

Vincent Jeanbrun, the mayor of the southern suburb of L’Hay-les-Roses, said his wife and one of their two children, aged five and seven, were injured while fleeing the building in the early hours.

Jeanbrun of the conservative Les Republicans party was not at home during the incident but at the town hall. The town hall has been the target of attacks on several nights since the shootings and is protected by barbed wire and barricades.

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“At 01:30, when I was at the town hall like the previous two nights, people attacked my house before setting fire to my house where my wife and my two young children were sleeping,” Jeanbrun said in his on Twitter account.

“While trying to save them and run away from the attackers, my wife and one of my children got hurt.”

The local prosecutor told reporters that an investigation into attempted murder had been opened. No suspect has been arrested.

The prosecutor said that the woman was injured while running through the backyard of the house.

Less intense riots in France on Saturday

Rioting across France was less intense overnight, the interior ministry said on Sunday, as thousands of police were deployed following the funeral of a teenager of North African descent who was shot dead by police, sparking protests across the country. Unrest had spread throughout.

The government deployed 45,000 police on the streets to quell a fifth night of unrest following the Saturday funeral of 17-year-old Nahel, of Algerian and Moroccan parents, who was shot during a traffic stop in Paris on Tuesday. Suburb of Nanterre.

Rioters have since set cars on fire and looted shops, but have also targeted town halls, police stations and schools – buildings that represent the French state.

President Emmanuel Macron postponed a state visit to Germany set to begin on Sunday to deal with the worst crisis for his leadership since the “yellow vest” protests that engulfed much of France in late 2018. He was scheduled to meet his ministers on Sunday evening. To review the situation, the president said, after the prime minister said on Friday that the government’s “crisis unit” had been activated until further notice.

Nahel’s death has fueled long-standing complaints of police violence and systemic racism within law enforcement agencies within low-income, racially mixed suburbs in France’s major cities. The officials deny this.

Prosecutors say one officer admitted to firing the fatal shot, and told investigators he wanted to stop the police pursuit, fearing he or another person would be hurt. The officer involved is under investigation for voluntary manslaughter.

The Interior Ministry said 719 people were arrested on Saturday night, down from 1,311 the previous night and 875 on Thursday night.

“Forty-five thousand police officers and thousands of firefighters have been deployed to enforce the order. Their actions … made for a quiet night,” the ministry said on Twitter.

Paris’ police chief said it was too early to say the unrest had ended. Laurent Núñez said, “Obviously there is less damage but we will continue in the days to come. We are very focused, no one is claiming victory.”

The biggest confrontation point overnight was Marseille, where police fired tear gas and fought street battles with youths around the city center until late into the night.

China, along with some Western countries, has warned its citizens to be vigilant because of the unrest, which could pose a significant challenge to France in the peak summer tourist season if it escalates around city center sites.

China’s Consulate General in France lodged a formal complaint after the windows of a bus carrying a Chinese tourist group were smashed on Thursday, causing minor injuries, China’s Consular Affairs Office said on Sunday.

In Paris, police increased security overnight on the city’s famous Champs Elysees avenue after calls on social media to gather there. Security forces were deployed on the road which is usually packed with tourists and were conducting spot checks. The shop fronts were boarded up to prevent possible damage.

The clashes led to the evacuation of the roof of at least one cafe there.

Sporadic clashes broke out elsewhere in central Paris. Paris police said six public buildings were damaged overnight and five officers were injured. Around 315 people were arrested in the city.

There was also unrest in the Mediterranean cities of Nice and Strasbourg in the east.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Saturday that about 10 malls had been attacked and looted in the wave of unrest. He said more than 200 supermarkets had been attacked, of which about 15 had been burnt down, as well as tobacco sellers, banks, fashion stores, sports shops and fast food outlets.

Since the outbreak of unrest, Macron – re-elected in 2022 – has been forced to postpone his trip to Germany and leave an EU summit early. He called on social media platforms to cooperate with authorities to help identify those “promoting violence”.

While this year he faced widespread union-led protests over a highly unpopular rise in the pension age that hurt his ratings, a concerted and prolonged insurgency from the streets, such as the Yellow Vests protests over high fuel prices, is a Challenge will create a new situation.

Yann Vernaert of the Jacques Delors Institute think-tank in Berlin said the postponed trip highlighted the impact of the unrest on Macron’s ability to conduct foreign policy.

“The state visit may be relegated to later, but the violent protests and the response to them also show how agitated the political mood is in France at the moment,” he added.