Grandmother wants French riots to stop

The grandmother of the 17-year-old boy who was fatally shot by police in a Paris suburb last week has called for an end to the worst rioting in France in nearly 20 years that stretched into the sixth night after his killing.

Nahel, who was of Algerian descent, was shot in the chest by an officer in Nanterre after he failed to stop the car during a traffic check on June 27.

His grandmother, identified as Nadia by French media, said on Sunday the rioters were using the teenager's death as an excuse to cause unrest and that the family wanted peace.

"I say to the people who are breaking things: Stop. Don't break windows, don't damage schools, don't damage buses. Stop it," Nadia told BFM Television. "Nahel is dead. My daughter had just one child, she's lost him. ... My daughter has no life left. I have lost my grandson and my daughter."

While unrest across France appeared to slow on its sixth night, President Emmanuel Macron postponed a state visit to Germany to deal with the crisis. He was scheduled to meet leaders of both houses of parliament on Monday and with more than 220 mayors of towns and cities affected by violence on Tuesday.

The riots appeared to be driven by a teenage backlash. Macron has blamed social media for the spread of the unrest and called on parents to take responsibility for their teenagers. Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti told France Inter radio that parents who abdicated that responsibility "either through disinterest or deliberately" would be prosecuted.

Nearly 45,000 police personnel were deployed again on Sunday night to deter rioters who have torched cars, looted stores and targeted town halls and police stations, including the home of the mayor of a Paris suburb, which was attacked while his wife and children were asleep inside, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.

Many of the rioters and protesters are young people from working-class communities. The average age of the more than 2,000 people arrested is 17, Darmanin said on Saturday.

The situation appeared less tense on Sunday. Overnight, 157 people were arrested in relation to the unrest nationwide, according to the Interior Ministry — a fraction of the number taken into custody the night before. Three police officers were also wounded. It was a sharp drop from the 719 arrests made on Saturday and the 1,300 on Friday.

The biggest overnight flashpoint was Marseille, where police fired tear gas and fought street battles with youths around the city center late into the night. There was also unrest in Paris, in the Riviera city of Nice and in Strasbourg in the east.

Across France, 297 vehicles were torched overnight along with 34 buildings, many of them linked to the government. In all, a total of 99 city halls have been attacked, according to the Interior Ministry.

Nahel's funeral was held on Saturday with hundreds of people attending the service to pay their respects. He was buried at the Mont-Valerien cemetery in Nanterre. The police officer who fatally shot him was charged with culpable homicide and jailed on Thursday.

The riots amount to the worst crisis for Macron since the "Yellow Vest" protests gripped much of France in late 2018.

'Particularly shocking'

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne condemned the attack on the home of Vincent Jeanbrun, mayor of L'Hay-les-Roses, as "particularly shocking" during a visit to the town on Sunday. She called for tough punishment for the perpetrators.

"We were all very shocked" by this "intolerable" attack, she told the press after the visit.

Borne assured all mayors that the Macron government would not "allow any violence to go unchallenged".

The unrest delivers a blow to France's image a year before the Paris Olympic Games. Several nations have warned their citizens to be vigilant, which could pose a significant challenge for France in the peak summer tourism season if protests were to envelop prominent attractions.

Agencies contributed to this story.