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France endures fifth night of violence after teenager’s funeral with street battles in Marseille
France endures fifth night of violence after teenager’s funeral with street battles in Marseille
France has endured a fifth night of violence following a day when emotional mourners gathered for the funeral of a teenager whose killing by police sparked nationwide unrest. Even though the rioting appeared to be less intense on Saturday, with tens of thousands of police deployed in cities across the country, more than 700 people were arrested. Police fired tear gas and fought street battles with protestors late into the night in flashpoint Marseilles. Earlier in the day, 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk was laid to rest in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where he had been shot dead by a police officer during a traffic stop on Tuesday, triggering days of fierce clashes. President Emmanuel Macron postponed a state visit to Germany, which was due to begin on Sunday, to handle the worst crisis for his leadership since the “Yellow Vest” protests paralysed much of France in late 2018. Some 45,000 police were on the streets with specialised elite units, armoured vehicles and helicopters brought in to reinforce its three largest cities, Paris, Lyon, and Marseille. In the early hours of Sunday morning, the situation was calmer than the previous four nights, although there was some tension in central Paris, and sporadic clashes in the Mediterranean city of Nice and the eastern city of Strasbourg, with Marseille city centre proving to be the biggest flashpoint. In Paris, police increased security at the city's landmark Champs Elysees Avenue following a call on social media to gather there. The street, usually packed with tourists, was lined with security forces carrying out spot checks. Shop facades were boarded up to prevent potential damage and pillaging. The interior ministry said 1,311 people had been arrested on Friday night, compared with 875 the previous night, although it described the violence as "lower in intensity". Police had made 719 arrests nationwide by early Sunday. Local authorities all over the country announced bans on demonstrations, ordered public transport to stop running in the evening, and some imposed overnight curfews. This came after a day of heightened emotions when several hundred people lined up to enter Nanterre’s grand mosque for the funeral of the teenager, of Algerian and Moroccan parents, who was fatally shot by police. Volunteers in yellow vests stood guard, while a few dozen bystanders watched from across the street. Some of the mourners, their arms crossed, said “God is Greatest” in Arabic, as they spanned the boulevard in prayer. Marie, 60, said she had lived in Nanterre for 50 years and there had always been problems with the police. “This absolutely needs to stop. The government is completely disconnected from our reality,” she said. The shooting of the teenager, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism. Nahel was known to police for previously failing to comply with traffic stop orders and was illegally driving a rental car, the Nanterre prosecutor said on Thursday. Macron has denied there is systemic racism in French law enforcement agencies. There is also a broader anger in the country’s poorest suburbs, where inequalities and crime are rife and French leaders have failed for decades to tackle what some politicians have called a “geographical, social and ethnic apartheid.” The unrest, a blow to France's global image just a year from holding the Olympic Games, will add political pressure on Macron. He had already faced months of anger and sometimes violent demonstrations across the country after pushing through a pension overhaul. Postponement of the state visit to Germany is the second time this year he has had to cancel a high-level event because of the domestic situation in France. In March, he cancelled King Charles’ planned state visit. Rioters have torched 2,000 vehicles since the start of the unrest. More than 200 police officers have been injured, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Saturday, adding that the average age of those arrested was 17. Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti said 30% of detainees were under 18. More than 700 shops, supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches had been "ransacked, looted and sometimes even burnt to the ground since Tuesday", Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said. In Marseille, where 80 people had been arrested on Friday, police said they had detained 60 people. "It's very scary. We can hear a helicopter and are just not going out because it's very worrying," said Tatiana, 79, a pensioner who lives in the city centre. In Lyon, France's third largest city, police deployed armoured personnel carriers and a helicopter. The unrest has revived memories of nationwide riots in 2005 that lasted three weeks and forced then President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency, after the death of two young men electrocuted in a power substation as they hid from police. Players from the national soccer team issued a rare statement calling for calm. "Violence must stop to leave way for mourning, dialogue and reconstruction," they said on star Kylian Mbappe's Instagram account. The South Winners supporters group, an influential fan group for Olympique de Marseille, called on the city's youth to "be wise and show restraint". "By acting in this way you are dirtying Nahel's memory and are also dividing our city." Events including two concerts at the Stade de France on the outskirts of Paris were cancelled, while LVMH-owned fashion house Celine cancelled its 2024 menswear show on Sunday, creative director Hedi Slimane said on Instagram. With the government urging social media companies to remove inflammatory material, Darmanin met officials from Meta, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok. Snapchat said it had zero tolerance for content that promoted violence. The policeman whom prosecutors say acknowledged firing a lethal shot at Nahel is in preventive custody under formal investigation for voluntary homicide, equivalent to being charged under Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions. His lawyer, Laurent-Franck Lienard, said his client had aimed at the driver's leg but was bumped when the car took off, causing him to shoot towards his chest. "Obviously (the officer) didn't want to kill the driver," Lienard said on BFM TV. Read More France riots - live: Nearly 500 arrested on the fifth night of unrest as teen’s funeral held Macron needs to get a grip on police brutality and social exclusion Warning to British travellers amid rioting in France France faces 5th night of rioting over teen's killing by police, signs of subsiding violence What the papers say – July 2 France riots: Cities face fifth night of violence despite police reinforcements
2023-07-02 15:50
Olivia Dunne claps back at NIL deal critics with resounding success: 'Get with the times'
Olivia Dunne claps back at NIL deal critics with resounding success: 'Get with the times'
Olivia Dunne said, 'The collectives mostly go to the men’s sports here at LSU, and I just want to fight for equal NIL opportunities'
2023-10-29 13:54
Buthelezi funeral: South Africans mull legacy of divisive Zulu leader
Buthelezi funeral: South Africans mull legacy of divisive Zulu leader
Mangosuthu Buthelezi has been granted a state funeral but the debate over his legacy reopens wounds.
2023-09-16 16:23
A man is shot and wounded as tempers flare in New Mexico over the statue of a Spanish conquistador
A man is shot and wounded as tempers flare in New Mexico over the statue of a Spanish conquistador
It was chaos as a gunshot rang out during a protest in northern New Mexico where officials had planned to install a statue of Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate
2023-09-29 09:16
Alaska board delays action on proposal to bar transgender girls from girls' high school sports teams
Alaska board delays action on proposal to bar transgender girls from girls' high school sports teams
The state board of education has delayed action on a proposal that would bar transgender girls from participating on high school girls’ athletic teams in Alaska
2023-07-27 09:15
How Iran can use the $6 billion involved in the release of 5 Americans
How Iran can use the $6 billion involved in the release of 5 Americans
The Iranian government now has access to $6 billion of their funds to be used for humanitarian purposes as a part of a wider deal that allowed five Americans who had been imprisoned in Iran to go free.
2023-09-19 06:17
Capitol riot victims recount their experiences ahead of Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy sentencing
Capitol riot victims recount their experiences ahead of Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy sentencing
Multiple law enforcement officers and two US Capitol staff members stood before a federal judge in Washington, DC, on Wednesday and recounted their terror as a mob breached the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as several Oath Keepers members are set to be sentenced for seditious conspiracy.
2023-05-25 20:28
UK officially bans Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group as terrorist organisation
UK officially bans Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group as terrorist organisation
The UK has formally banned Russia's mercenary Wagner Group as a terrorist organisation weeks after the death of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The government order, approved on Friday, makes it a criminal offence to be a member or a supporter of the paramilitary group in the UK. “The Russian mercenary organisation, Wagner Group, has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation today after an order was laid in Parliament on Wednesday September 6,” the Home Office said in a statement. Apart from joining the group or showing support, arranging meetings for the group and displacing Wagner's flag or logo will also be considered a criminal offence. Those found guilty of violating the order will face a potential prison sentence of up to 14 years, which can be handed down alongside or in place of a fine, it added. The move puts Wagner in the same category as the Islamic State group, the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Boko Haram in Africa and Northern Ireland paramilitaries among others. The Wagner Group is a private military company that was under the control of Prigozhin until his reported death in a plane crash on 23 August. It has been a key part of Moscow’s fighting force in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Home secretary Suella Braverman proposing the ban last week said Wagner has been "involved in looting, torture and barbarous murders". Calling the group a "threat to national security", Ms Braverman added:"They are terrorists, plain and simple - and this proscription order makes that clear in UK law." The ban will allow UK authorities to seize the organisation’s assets in a symbolic move as Wagner is not known to operate in Britain. Wagner cut its teeth in deployments to Crimea – illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 – and eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region in the aftermath of that act and has since dispatched troops to several conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, including the Syrian Civil War. The ban came into force following a recommendation by the parliament’s influential Foreign Affairs Committee in July that Wagner be outlawed. The committee said British authorities had “underplayed and underestimated” the threat posed by the mercenary group. The committee said Wagner’s future was uncertain after Prigozhin’s short-lived armed mutiny against Russia’s top military leaders in June. The lawmakers said Britain should take advantage of the confused situation to “disrupt” Wagner. Several other allies of Ukraine have sanctioned Wagner's leaders, and earlier this year, the Lithuanian and Estonian legislatures passed resolutions declaring it a terrorist organisation. The US has designated the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organisation. Read More With its leader dead, can the Wagner group rise and ride again? What next for the Wagner Group as leader presumed dead in plane crash? Ukraine-Russia war – live: ‘Significant losses’ for Putin’s forces as Kyiv retakes village and attacks ships The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary
2023-09-16 14:55
Ukraine-Russia war– live: Captured Ukrainian soldiers reveal torture in Russian prison – report
Ukraine-Russia war– live: Captured Ukrainian soldiers reveal torture in Russian prison – report
Former Ukrainian captives have alleged they were subjected to torture, including electric shocks, while they were held at a detention facility in Russia. Speaking to the BBC over a dozen former detainees detailed the alleged physical and psychological abuse they suffered at the hands of Russian officers and guards at the Pre-Trial Detention Facility Number Two in Taganrog. They have since been released in prisoner exchanges. Guards at the facility carry black batons and metal bars to beat the captives in the legs, arms, or “anywhere they wanted”, senior lieutenant Artem Seredniak was quoted as saying. “It’s what they call ‘reception’,” he said. The captives were left under-nourished and the injured were not provided appropriate medical assistance, according to the report, which details a number of potential serious violations of international law. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government is set to build new fortifications and military infrastructure in northeast regions that border Russia and Belarus at a cost of nearly $35m, prime minister Denys Shmyhal has said. “At the request of Kharkiv and Chernihiv... we are allocating 911.5m hryvnias ($24.7m) for Kharkiv and 363m ($9.8m) for Chernihiv to build military engineering and fortification structures,” Mr Shmyhal said on Telegram. Read More Putin’s forces step up air strikes on Ukraine regions bordering Nato Experts warn Ukraine’s frontline push is being damaged by West Putin accuses West of ‘adding fuel to fire’ with conflict in Ukraine Russia's ruble has tumbled. What does it mean for the wartime economy?
2023-08-16 13:52
Russian airstrikes kill 2 and wound 3 in southern Ukraine as war enters 20th month
Russian airstrikes kill 2 and wound 3 in southern Ukraine as war enters 20th month
The governor of southern Ukraine's Kherson region says Russian airstrikes have killed two people and wounded three others
2023-09-24 21:47
Who is Marissa DuBois? Runway model leaves Internet stunned with bold catwalk
Who is Marissa DuBois? Runway model leaves Internet stunned with bold catwalk
Marissa DuBois is also a successful content creator with a large following on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube
2023-07-25 01:15
'I'm trying to make sure they enjoy being a kid': Stephen Curry says he won't force his children into sports
'I'm trying to make sure they enjoy being a kid': Stephen Curry says he won't force his children into sports
'So she's found something she loves, and she's passionate about it,' Stephen Curry said referring to his 11-year-old daughter Riley
2023-10-25 05:16