For the seventh night in a row, the french government will keep on the night of this monday the broad device of 45,000 police officers to try to continue the de-escalation of the riots that the country has suffered in the last six nights.
Despite the clear drop in violence –157 detainees on Sunday night compared to more than 400 on Saturday night–, the authorities are going to continue their deployment, which includes 7,000 agents in the Paris regionas well as special and armored units in Marseille and Lyon.
Bus and tram service will also be suspended tonight from 9:00 p.m. local time in Paris and its surrounding region to prevent vehicles from being set on fire.
Damage to public transport in the Paris region is estimated at around 20 million eurosaccording to the regional transport agency.
Meanwhile, the French government assured that this outbreak of violenceoriginated after the death of a 17-year-old boy of Algerian origin shot by an agent at a police checkpoint, is not a social revolt in the most depressed urban neighborhoods in the country but an episode provoked by groups of young delinquents.
Executive sources stressed this Monday to the press that what is being seen “is not a revolt in the neighborhoods,” but “acts of delinquency” and “looting”.
The inhabitants of these most disadvantaged neighborhoods are the most affected by the destruction of schools, libraries or youth centers, but also by the looting of some 2,000 shops or the burning of thousands of cars.
For example, a total of 429 bars authorized to sell tobacco have been looted in these six days of riots, half in the Paris region, according to official data.
“You have to try to talk to the neighborhoods and be firm with the vandals. I think it’s a good balance”said the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, when announcing the security device for today.
In addition, this Monday there were support rallies in favor of the mayors of towns that have been attacked during this week of riots.
The most striking case was that of L’Haÿ les Roses (on the southern outskirts of Paris), where a group of people forced the door to the garden, introduced a stolen vehicle and set it on fire when it was next to the house, in what the prosecution investigates as an assassination attempt.
That night, from Saturday to Sunday, the mayor vincent jeanbrun I was in the City Hall coordinating the situation in the city. His wife and two young children had to hastily flee out the back door. The woman and one of the children were injured.
In an intervention, Jeanbrun regretted that public representatives and their families are directly attacked by this “extreme violence”.
President Emmanuel Macron will meet this coming Tuesday with the mayors of the 220 towns that have suffered the most violence in the last week.
Meanwhile, another source of controversy arose today when a donation fund created on the internet by a well-known sympathizer of the extreme right in favor of the policeman arrested for shooting Nahel today exceeded one million euros after being launched last Friday.
The bottom Support for the family of the Nanterre police officer It was close to 1.2 million euros at mid-afternoon this Monday.
The initiative has been criticized by minority defense organizations, but the GoFundMe platform, where it works, has defended itself by ensuring that the fund respects its rules.
