Hundreds arrested in third night of France riots
Media reports citing French officials say hundreds of people were arrested, Reuters reported.
Emmanuel Macron urged parents to keep teenagers at home to quell rioting spreading across the country and said social media is fuelling copycat violence.
After a second crisis meeting with senior ministers, the French president said that social networks are playing a “considerable role” in the spreading unrest triggered by the deadly police shooting of the 17-year-old boy.
He said he wants social media such as Snapchat and TikTok to remove sensitive content and that violence is being organised online.
Rioters put up barricades in Nanterre, the working-class town outside Paris where Nahel was shot dead on Tuesday.
Their advance towards police lines under a hail of fireworks was stopped as police fired round after round of tear gas.
In their anger, rioters set fire to cars and large swathes of fencing.
Police seen making their push into Nanterre ran past graffiti left by the rioters: saying “Nahel, we love you” – and below that, obscenities leveled at the authorities.
Police say the teenager fled a traffic check, in an incident caught on smartphone camera and shared on social media.
The officer who fired the fatal shot at close range is being investigated for voluntary homicide, and remains detained.
The teenager’s death has fed complaints of systemic racism and police violence, which the force denies.
Forty thousand officers were said to have deployed across France on Thursday, nearly four times the number the day before.
But there are few signs that government appeals to de-escalate the violence – including from French leader Emanuel Macron - would quell the widespread anger.
The UK on Friday updated its official travel advice to warn citizens planning to visit France about unrest sparked by a police officer’s killing of the teenage, AFP reported.