France’s mayors called on members of the public and elected officials to gather at town halls across the country on Monday in a show of mass opposition to violent protests that have dragged on for nearly a week.
The government has been battling nightly riots and looting ever since 17-year-old Nahel M. was shot dead by a police officer during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday, reviving longstanding accusations of racism within the French police force.
The extraordinary call for a “mobilisation of citizens for a return to republican order” came after the home of the mayor of a Paris suburb was rammed with a flaming car in an apparent bid to burn it down, prompting widespread outrage.
In a press release, an association of the country’s mayors noted that “communes everywhere in France are the scene of serious unrest, which targets republican symbols with extreme violence”.
Seeking to quell what has become one of the biggest challenges to President Emmanuel Macron since he took office in 2017, the interior ministry said it was again deploying 45,000 police and gendarmes nationwide overnight from Sunday to Monday, the same figure as the previous two nights.—AFP
