SHOPS RANSACKED
Buildings and vehicles have been torched and stores looted in the unrest, which has spread nationwide, including to cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille.
More than 200 police officers have been injured and hundreds of rioters and have been arrested, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, adding that their average age was 17.
Looters have ransacked dozens of shops and torched about 2,000 vehicles since the riots started.
Friday night’s arrests included 80 people in Marseille, which is home to many people of North African descent.
Social media images showed an explosion rocking the old port area of the southern city, but authorities said they did not believe that there were any casualties.
Rioters in the centre of France’s second-largest city looted a gun store and stole hunting rifles but no ammunition, police said. One person was arrested with a rifle likely from the store, police added.
Police were deployed to guard the store.
Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan called on the French government to send extra troops to tackle “pillaging and violence” in the city, where three police officers were slightly wounded early on Saturday.
In Lyon, France’s third-largest city, the police deployed armoured personnel carriers and a helicopter.
And in Paris, police cleared protesters from the iconic central Place de la Concorde square on Friday night.
Darmanin had asked local authorities to halt bus and tram traffic, while Macron earlier urged parents to keep children off the streets.
Asked on a television news programme whether the government could declare a state of emergency, Darmanin said: “Quite simply, we’re not ruling out any hypothesis and we’ll see after tonight what the president of the Republic chooses.”
The unrest has revived memories of three weeks of nationwide riots in 2005 that forced then President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency following the death of two young men electrocuted in a power substation as they hid from police.
Players from the national football team issued a rare statement calling for calm. “Violence must stop to leave way for mourning, dialogue and reconstruction,” they said, in a statement posted on star Kylian Mbappe’s Instagram account.
Events including two concerts at the Stade de France on the outskirts of Paris were cancelled, while Tour de France organisers said they were ready to adapt to any situation when the cycling event enters the country on Monday from Spain.
Source: CNA
