French President Emmanuel Macron met Tuesday with hundreds of French officials to begin exploring the “deeper reasons” for the country’s plunge into riots after the killing of a teenager by a police officer at a traffic stop.
The meeting at the Elysee palace in Paris with more than 300 mayors, whose municipalities suffered damage over a week of violence, came after the authorities reported a much calmer night across the country.
“Is it a permanent return to calm? I will be cautious, but the peak that we’ve seen in previous days has passed,” Macron said, according to a participant.
The government has battled riots and looting since 17-year-old Nahel M. was killed by an officer during a traffic stop on June 27 in a Paris suburb, rekindling long-standing accusations of systemic racism among security forces.
Overnight violence in French cities had halved in 24 hours, the interior ministry said, with 72 people arrested nationwide.
The ministry said dozens of buildings were damaged — including attacks on four offices of police or gendarmes — but there were no injuries.
More than 150 vehicles were also set ablaze, and hundreds of fires started in rubbish bins or other public areas.
The heightened police mobilisation was maintained at 45,000 across France, the same as the two previous nights.
– ‘Painstaking long-term work’ –
At the gathering of mayors, Macron was hoping to “start the painstaking, long-term work needed to understand the deeper reasons that led to these events”, an official at the president’s office said.
But with right- and left-wing officials pointing fingers at one another and each side insistent on their own solutions, the centrist president said at the end of the meeting that they had failed to find “unanimity”.
His government would “reach very real solutions” over the summer, he added, saying “we must strike while the iron is hot”.
But Zartoshte Bakhtiari, mayor of Neuilly-sur-Marne east of Paris, said “I came to hear the president give us a vision, set a course. I didn’t come for a group therapy session”.
Nearly 4,000 arrests have been made since Friday, including more than 1,200 minors, according to justice ministry figures.
Macron raised the idea of immediate fines to the parents of children caught for vandalism or robberies.
“With the first crime, we need to find a way of sanctioning the families financially and easily,” he said, according to comments reported by the Parisien newspaper.
During the meeting with mayors, Macron also promised to fast-track a new law allowing for rapid assistance with rebuilding damaged buildings, public spaces and vandalised transport infrastructure.
– ‘Destroyed everything’ –
French businesses meanwhile were counting the cost of seven nights of rioting that left countless shops and other outlets vandalised.
“They destroyed everything,” said Alexandre Manchon, who works at a tobacconist’s in the southern city of Marseille, which has seen some of the worst looting.
“None of this is our doing, we are just working people who get up at five in the morning so we can feed our children and families,” he told AFP.
Employers’ organisations called on the government to create an emergency fund “for those who lost everything”.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Tuesday that the government might allow damaged businesses to suspend tax and social security payments as they rebuild.
But he said the riots would not impact France’s ability to attract business or tourists, as the country prepares to host the summer Olympic Games next year.
“The French economy is solid… and the daily life of all French citizens is not threatened by what happened. And we are coming back to a more quiet situation after four or five days of riots,” he told CNN television.
Police meanwhile said one of the passengers in the car driven by Nahel M., who had turned himself in, had been questioned to determine the exact circumstances of the shooting.
The policeman who fired the lethal shot remained in custody Tuesday, charged with homicide.
An online collection for the family of the 38-year old, launched by far-right figure Jean Messiha, has gathered more 1.5 million euros ($1.6 million), sparking outrage in particular among the political left.
Messiha said on social media he was closing the collection Tuesday at midnight, while the family of Nahel M. said it had filed a legal complaint over the fund-raising move.
“It pays to kill a young Arab,” tweeted Manon Aubry, a European Parliament deputy for the hard-left France Unbowed party (LFI).
A fund to support the family of Nahel has run to just under 346,000 euros.
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Originally published as France seeks answers as Macron says riots ‘peak’ passed
