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France riots live: teargas fired in Marseille as 45,000 more police deployed across country – as it happened | France | The GuardianSkip to main contentSkip to navigation
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has postponed a state visit to Germany because of the ongoing unrest in France, German authorities have said.
Macron was expected to arrive in the country on Sunday for talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to discuss key policy areas.
The French president was intending to visit a state banquet on Monday hosted by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin, before returning home on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the president said Macron had requested the date be moved due to the situation in France.
French President Emmanuel Macron (L) and the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (R) attend the European Council Summit at EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on 30 June. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
In case you’ve missed anything, here’s a quick rundown of all the latest developments from the riots in France.
Nahel Merzouk, the 17-year-old whose shooting by police sparked the riots, has been buried after a private funeral attended by dozens of his friends and family. A large crowd also gathered outside the mosque where the ceremony was held.
President Macron has postponed a state visit to Germany amid the unrest. He had been scheduled to arrive on Sunday for talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and to attend a state banquet before travelling home on Tuesday.
An additional 45,000 officers have been deployed to Paris, Marseille, Lyon, and elsewhere ahead of what is expected to be a fifth night of unrest.
Photos have shown shops along the Champs-Elysées, the wide shopping avenue in central Paris, boarding up their windows in preparation for further rioting.
Police have already announced the arrest of 37 people in Paris and 22 people in Marseille on Saturday evening.
Earlier in the day, the justice minister, Eric Dupont-Moretti, said that almost a third of the 1,311 people arrested overnight on Friday were under the age of 18.
The mayor of the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, where Nahel was shot, has said the death marks a “very difficult moment” that was “forcing us to reflect on the police’s terms of engagement”.
French luxury fashion house Celine has cancelled its menswear show on Sunday amid the unrest. Creative director Hedi Slimane said the “uncertain evolution” of the situation made the move necessary for the security of his team and guests.
We’re closing this liveblog now. Thanks for reading
The protests in France began on Tuesday after the fatal shooting by police of Nahel Merzouk, a French 17-year-old of Algerian descent, in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
Merzouk was shot in the chest at close range as he tried to drive away from two police officers after being pulled over.
According to reports, he had been pursued after driving at high speed in a bus lane and stopped only when he was blocked by stationary traffic.
Police initially said one of the officers opened fire because the way Merzouk was driving made him fear for his own safety and that of others, but that account was later questioned after video of the shooting surfaced online.
The officer has now been charged with voluntary homicide, and the incident has led to accusations of racism in the French police.
The protests in Paris evolved into rioting on Tuesday night and spread across the country throughout the week.
At least 2,100 people have so far been arrested and more than 200 police officers have been reported injured.
French police arrested more than 200 people during the day on Saturday in connection with rioting over the preceding nights, according to French outlet BFMTV.
The arrests were predominantly in connection with attacks on police officers and acts of arson involving public buildings overnight on Thursday, the channel said, citing police sources.
Police had earlier announced the arrest of almost 2,200 people on Thursday and Friday nights.
Inside, Emmanuel Macron was sharing a typically polished vision of a rejuvenated, safer Marseille. Yet it was outside the spruced-up gym in the impoverished Busserine district - tensions building on the hottest day of the year – where the real story was playing out.
Little more than 12 hours before the police killing of a 17-year-old boy 500 miles north in Nanterre would convulse the country, scores of officers clutching assault rifles and bulletproof riot shields clashed with teenagers of north African descent, trading insults as officers profiled potential troublemakers.
Wassida Kessaci had decided not to join the crowd monitoring the French president’s trip to Marseille last week. Partly because Macron disappointed her; partly because she had been visiting Busserine too often of late.
Most recently on 24 April, when she met a mother whose teenage son was shot in the head as he sat on a sofa, metres from where the French president now held court. Weeks earlier, she comforted another mother of a young man whose blackened body was found in the locked boot of a torched car. “All this in the same place where Macron was speaking,” she said.
A total of 22 people have been arrested in the city of Marseille so far this evening, according to French outlet BFMTV.
The channel said five people were arrested after tear gas was used to disperse demonstrators on La Canebière, a major shopping avenue in the centre of the city.
It comes after police announced 14 people had been arrested amid looting on the same street.
Marseille has seen significant rioting in recent nights and is one of the cities to which some of the 45,000 additional officers deployed across France tonight have been sent.
We’ve got some pictures coming in of unrest this evening in Marseille, one of the cities to which additional officers have been deployed in preparation for tonight.
Riot police officers stand by a burning bin in Marseille. Photograph: Clement Mahoudeau/AFP/Getty Images
Protesters disperse amid smoke from tear gas canisters. Photograph: Clement Mahoudeau/AFP/Getty Images
Officers stand guard near a row of police vans. Photograph: Clement Mahoudeau/AFP/Getty Images
At about 3am last Friday, I was woken up by what sounded like gunfire. I wasn’t far wrong.
From the back windows of my apartment in southern Paris I could make out fireworks being hurled at the police and hear the immediate response with “flash-balls”, the “less than lethal” weapons used by French police for riot control.
There were familiar images of cars and buildings on fire and heavily armed police lines – familiar at least to anyone who has lived through the past few years of angry protest in France.
But what was most disturbing about these riots was the sheer scale of it all: the violence was not just contained to the banlieues of the big cities but was everywhere, including picturesque towns such as Montargis in the Loiret.”
An additional 45,000 police officers will be deployed in cities across France tonight, the country’s interior minister has confirmed.
At a press conference on Saturday, Gérald Darmanin said reinforcements would be sent in particular to Lyon and Marseille, which have seen some of the worst of the rioting.
It matches the number of extra officers sent out overnight on Friday, an operation which saw 1,311 people arrested, the highest figure since the start of the unrest.
More than 200 officers have been injured since the demonstrations broke out, according to French officials.
French luxury fashion house Celine has cancelled its menswear show in Paris this weekend amid the ongoing unrest, its creative director, Hedi Slimane, has said.
In a post to Instagram on Saturday, Slimane wrote: “A fashion show in Paris, while France and its capital are bereaved and bruised, seems … inconsiderate and totally misplaced.”
He added that it was a “great disappointment” to cancel the show, which had been scheduled for Sunday, but that the “uncertain evolution of the very serious troubles” made the move necessary for the security of his team and guests.
'We must reflect on the police's terms of engagement', says local mayor
The mayor of Nanterre, the Paris suburb where Nahel Merzouk was killed, has said the death means authorities must “reflect on the police’s terms of engagement”.
Speaking to French newspaper Le Monde, Patrick Jarry said the work of the local police is usually “carried out in compliance with the rules” but that “today, we are confronted with a particularly dramatic episode”.
“[It is] a very difficult moment, forcing us to reflect on the police’s terms of engagement,” he said.
“This is particularly the case for specific police forces, such as those who intervened on Tuesday morning by using their weapon against a teenager, violating all legal provisions.”
Asked about the reaction of locals to the incident, he said: “Today, the demand for justice is paramount. The thousands of people who have expressed their anger would like to be sure that justice will be accomplished fairly.
“We must continue to support [Nahel’s] mother. Here, at the town hall, we’ll always be by her side and we’ll support her in all her endeavours, particularly with the courts.”
The 17-year-old shot dead by a French police officer on Tuesday has been buried after a private funeral in Nanterre.
Dozens of Nahel Merzouk’s friends and family members attended a ceremony at the Ibn Badis mosque in the town west of Paris before the coffin was taken to the Mont-Valérien cemetery to cries of “Justice for Nahel”.
A large crowd had gathered outside the mosque, and the funeral procession was escorted by mourners and supporters including many young people on scooters.
A 38-year-old police sergeant has been officially placed under investigation for voluntary homicide.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, cancelled a planned two-day visit to Germany on Sunday.
A number of shops and boutiques on the Champs-Elysées, in Paris, have taken additional security measures following the fourth night of violence triggered by the fatal shooting of teenager Nahel Merzouk.
Workers were pictured putting up additional screens at luxury brand stores such as Rolex, amid fears of further protests on Saturday evening following Nahel’s funeral.
Finance minister Bruno Le Maire said more than 700 shops, supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches had been “ransacked, looted and sometimes even burned to the ground since Tuesday”.
Security measures take by shops and boutiques on the Champs-Elysees following the fourth night of unrest. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Enhancing security measures at the Tag-Heuer outlet. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
More emergency anti-looting work. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
On Friday, the French president criticised the role of social media as violence continued to erupt across the country.
Macron, who left an EU summit in Brussels early to attend a crisis cabinet meeting, appealed to “the responsibility of mothers and fathers” and said it was not the job of ministers to take their place.
He also said social media was playing a considerable role in the violence that has led to thousands of arrests.
Watch his comments below:
Emmanuel Macron says social media is fuelling copycat violence in France riots – video
Almost a third of people arrested under 18, says justice minister
The justice minister, Eric Dupont-Moretti, has said that 30% of the 1,311 people arrested overnight are people are under the age of 18.
In other developments, rioters have torched 2,000 vehicles since the start of the unrest, and more than 200 police officers have been injured, according to the interior minister, Gerald Darmanin.
In addition, more than 700 shops, supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches have been “ransacked, looted and sometimes even burned to the ground since Tuesday”, said finance minister Bruno Le Maire.
A woman pays her respects at the site where Nahel died. Photograph: Sam Tarling/Getty Images
Several hundred mourners lined up to enter Nanterre’s grand mosque for the funeral of Nahel Merzouk this afternoon.
The entrance to the Ibn Badis Mosque was guarded by volunteers in yellow vests, while a few dozen bystanders watched from across the street as the funeral ceremony took place, Reuters reports.
Some of the mourners, their arms crossed, said “God is Greatest” in Arabic, as they spanned the boulevard in prayer.
A group of mourners were pictured at the Mont-Valérien cemetery, where Nahel is being laid to rest.
People wait next to the entrance of Mont Valerien cemetery, where Nahel Merzouk will be laid to rest, in Nanterre, near Paris, France, 01 July 2023. Photograph: Olivier Matthys/EPA
Rokhaya Diallo is a writer, activist and director, and they write for us to argue that France has ignored racist police violence for decades.
Since the video went viral of the brutal killing by a police officer of Nahel, a 17-year-old shot dead at point-blank range, the streets and housing estates of many poorer French neighbourhoods have been in a state of open revolt. “France faces George Floyd moment,” I read in the international media, as if we were suddenly waking up to the issue of racist police violence.
This naive comparison itself reflects a denial of the systemic racist violence that for decades has been inherent to French policing.
I first became involved in antiracist campaigning after a 2005 event that had many parallels with the killing of Nahel.
Three teenagers aged between 15 and 17 were heading home one afternoon after playing football with friends when they were suddenly pursued by police.
Although they had done nothing wrong (and this was confirmed by a subsequent inquiry) these terrified youngsters, these children, hid from the police in an electricity substation. Two of them, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, were electrocuted. The third, Muhittin Altun, suffered appalling burns and life-changing injuries.
