France Faces George Floyd Moment as Police Shooting Sparks Mass Protest

A mayor of a Parisian suburb has described his shock at the destruction that took place overnight during riots around France following the fatal police shooting of a teenager, which some have likened to the death George Floyd.

A second night of violence raged across France Wednesday, sparked by the death of a 17-year-old named as Nahel M, who was shot in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre as he seemed to refuse to comply to a traffic stop. Compounding the public anger was the fact that initial reports from police sources suggested the driver had attempted to plough into officers at the stop, an account contradicted by video that showed the shooting at point-blank range.

Zartoshte Bakhtiari, mayor of Neuilly-sur-Marne, east of Paris, said that overnight, police cars had been set on fire, the local housing department burnt out and the cultural center and kindergarten attacked in his suburb.

"I am terribly shocked by what happened last night here and around France," he told Newsweek by phone. He said that the infrastructure that provides essential services in his city had been "deliberately set alight by these barbarians and savages."

"For me, it's the Republic that is under attack. When you attack a school, you attack education, when you are attacking the municipal police, you are attacking security," added the right-wing mayor.

He shared images on social media of some of the damage which included burnt out cars, buildings and smashed windows. "Social services, security, education and culture were attacked last night in Neuilly-Sur-Marne," he told Newsweek. "All the strongest symbols of the Republic."

Protesters launched fireworks at police, set cars alight, torched public buildings in suburbs around Paris, but also in the southwestern city of Toulouse and cities in the north. Disturbances were also reported in Amiens, Dijon, Saint-Etienne and outside of Lyon in the southeast.

According to the Interior Ministry, at least 180 people were arrested during the second night of unrest, which has been fueled by a deep-rooted perception of police brutality, namely in the ethnically diverse areas of France's biggest cities.

Tuesday's killing was the third fatal shooting during traffic stops in France in 2023, down from a record 13 in 2022, according to local reports. There were three such killings in 2021, and two in 2020, according to Reuters. Nahel came from a family of Algerian origin, still according to Reuters, which found that most of those killed by police in traffic stops since 2017 were Black or of Arab origin.

In its editorial on Thursday, Le Monde, one of France's most renowned newspapers, wrote: "Leaving aside the totally specific American racial context, the events are reminiscent of the murder of George Floyd, an African-American suffocated by a white Minneapolis police officer in May 2020. An act committed by a representative of the law enforcement, filmed and broadcast almost live, targeting an emblematic representative of a socially discriminated category: a young person from a working-class area."

There were protests in France against racial profiling in the wake of George Floyd's murder by police in Minnesota in May 2020.

Bakhtiari, said the violence should be seen from the point of view of delinquency in working-class neighborhoods. "What we are seeing is an extremely tense relationship in which people simply want to kill the Republic and want chaos."

There are concerns among French politicians about how to quell the rioting. In 2005, the death of two young boys hiding from police in Clichy-sous-Bois outside Paris triggered weeks of unrest and France declaring a state of national emergency.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the disturbances were "absolutely unjustifiable." He had earlier condemned the teenager's killing as "inexplicable" and "unforgivable."

The Nanterre prosecutor said Thursday that the police officer who fatally shot Nahel M. would be detained on charges of intentional homicide.