STORY: French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said at a press conference Saturday that, for a second night in a row, the country will mobilize 45,000 police officers in an effort to quell riots in major cities and suburbs over the police killing of a 17-year-old near Paris earlier in the week.
Arrests have totaled more than 2,000 the past two nights, forcing President Emmanuel Macron to postpone his trip to Germany.
The funeral for the teenager killed, Nahel M. was on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Interior minister had a warning for protesters (quote):
“…I think that everyone has understood that the state will not back down. I think, and let me say here, that the message given to parents is very important.”
Finance minister Bruno Le Maire said more than 700 shops, supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches had been “ransacked, looted and sometimes even burnt to the ground since Tuesday.”
Local authorities all over the country announced bans on demonstrations and ordered public transport to stop running in the evening.
The shooting of the teen of North African descent, that was caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism.
The latest uprising is the worst crisis for Macron’s leadership since the “Yellow Vest” protests which paralyzed much of France in late 2018.
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