"No justice, no peace!" This is the slogan that Arab and African French use in their protests across France.
Massive riots sparked near Paris and then across the whole country after the French police shot a 17-year-old teenager for disobedience.
Marseille is on fire. In Lyon, there is chaos as protesters set cars and buildings on fire. Town halls, police stations, schools get vandalised in Paris and suburbs, Toulouse, Lille, Clermont-Ferrand. Mass clashes began in Bordeaux, Grenoble, Saint-Etienne, etc. There's looting everywhere as protesters rob trucks, shops and warehouses.
On Friday night, 40,000 police and gendarmes were mobilised to suppress the riots. As many as 667 people were detained, AFP reports.
The police officer who shot a 17-year-old man named only as Nahel M. was arrested on Tuesday. The officer claimed that he opened fire to defend himself. A video that captured the moment of the attack showed the officer firing at point-blank range through the window of a departing Mercedes vehicle. The video suggests that the officer abused his powers. It was also said, however, that Nahel M. had had criminal record and was an aggressive individual.
President Emmanuel Macron interrupted his stay in Brussels for the European Union summit to return to Paris and chair the anti-crisis meeting.
The teenager's killing has devided France. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the left-wing La France Insoumise Party (LFI, "France Unbowed"), condemned all those who call for calm.
"We call for punishment. Revoke the lawsuit against poor Nahel. Punish the killer policeman and his accomplice who gave the order to shoot. Leave the paramedic alone,” Mélenchon wrote on social media.
The aforementioned paramedic, an Arab by birth, attacked a random policeman, who had nothing to do with the killing of the teenager, simply out of revenge.
LFI party also requested setting up a commission to inquire into "the growing number of deaths following refusal to obey" (this suggests that the French legislation provides for the use of weapons in this case).
Сhairman of the right-wing Rally National (formerly Marine Le Pen's National Front), Jordan Bardella, called Mélenchon a "public danger" and denounced "calls for an uprising" "in a hope of gaining dirty electoral gains." Bardella called for a revision of migration policy.
In France, many recollect events of 2005, when two teenagers were electrocuted as they took shelter in an electrical substation while running away from police. The tragic and absurd death of the two teenagers divided the French society in opinions on racial discrimination.
Obviously, the problem has taken deeper roots over the years due to uncontrolled migration. France has become a country that migrants consider their own:
The way that migrants behave in France evokes rejection in the ranks of white security forces, who earlier refused to kneel before the BLM movement. Police trade unions condemned the detention of their colleague claiming that the authorities were pandering to the protesters.
It appears that France prefers to turn a blind eye on the problem of racial differences. There is no open discussion held on the subject. There are no racial statistical studies either. A combination of all these factors may take the nation to the brink of social explosion. France may eventually turn either into an Islamic country or an ultra-right nation.