Wild social media videos show extent of French riot chaos as lawless thugs ransack shops, fire AK-47s in the streets and drive a stolen bus through flames
- Clips of violent clashes in France have flooded social media over the last week
- The riots were sparked by the police shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M.
Since riots broke out in France last week, shocking footage of street violence has flooded social media showing the extent of the chaos.
Thousands of people have been filmed in cities from Paris to Marseille clashing with police, setting fire to buildings and – in some cases – even firing guns into the air.
The unrest – sparked by the police shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M. – appeared to slow on its sixth night, but still public buildings, cars and municipal bins were targeted nationwide by fires and vandalism overnight and into Monday morning.
In all, according to the Interior Ministry, there were 157 arrests overnight, out of a total of 3,354 arrests in all since June 27, while 45,000 officers were deployed nationwide to counter violence fueled by anger over discrimination.
French President Emmanuel Macron has zeroed in on social media platforms that have relayed dramatic images of vandalism and cars and buildings being torched.
In this clip posted online, a stolen city bus is shown being driven at speed through a flaming barricade, its wheels briefly catching fire as it barrels through
Singling out Snapchat and TikTok, he said they were being used to organize unrest and served as conduits for copycat violence.
READ MORE: France breathes a sigh of relief: Riots subside as police liken mood in Paris suburb to an ‘ordinary Sunday’ and Marseille sees relative calm
Such clips show the huge scale of the violence, with streets of some of the country’s most famous cities more resembling warzones than picturesque French avenues.
In footage filmed by rioters and onlookers, people have been seen looting shops – including clothes stores and car dealerships – and escaping with bags of loot, or even cars and motorbikes stolen from showrooms.
Other clips have shown rioters wielding firearms, with at least one video appearing to show someone firing off rounds in the direction of riot police.
Another showed one rioters shooting what appeared to be a shotgun at a CCTV camera, which another purportedly showed men firing AK-47s into the air – raising questions over how such weapons have found themselves into the hands of the public.
Stolen vehicles have also been used to ram through door and gates, or set alight on the streets as part of barricades.
In one clip posted online, a stolen city bus is shown being driven at speed through a flaming barricade, its wheels briefly catching fire as it barrels through.
Elsewhere, another bus – this time a large coach – is seen being torched in a video, with a rioter parking it on top of a flaming street barricade and leaving it to burn.
Another video showed a horse-drawn carriage with no driver running amok down a street, crashing through the outdoor area of a cafe.
As the horse ran through, it appeared the trample a number of customers, with the carriage bouncing up behind the animal as it knocked down people and tables.
Another clip (left) showed one rioters shooting what appeared to be a shotgun at a CCTV camera, which another purportedly showed men firing AK-47s into the air. Another video (right) showed another person firing a weapon into the air
This video showed a horse-drawn carriage with no driver running amok down a street, crashing through the outdoor area of a cafe. As the horse ran through, it appeared the trample a number of customers, with the carriage bouncing up behind the animal
One video looking out over a building showed what some online said sounded like a ‘bomb’ before dozens of rioters rushed in to storm the complex.
It was not immediately clear what the building was, but other buildings that have been attacked in recent days include a city hall, a mayor’s residence and even public libraries, which have been seen burning in the night.
Meanwhile, a car loaded with incendiary devices struck the home of the mayor of the Paris suburb of L’Hay-les-Roses over the weekend, an unusually personal attack that authorities said would be prosecuted as an attempted murder.
It was a video originally that sparked the anger being seen across France.
In footage of the shooting, the policeman named in French media as Florian M. can be seen with a colleague stopping a yellow Mercedes which Nahel was driving without a licence in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday morning.
The officer has his weapon drawn and threatens Nahel before shooting him at point-blank range as the car drives off, causing it to crash.
Another teenager in the car told media after that the officers also hit Nahel with the butts of their guns before firing.
One video looking out over a building showed what some online said sounded like a ‘bomb’ before dozens of rioters rushed in to storm the complex (pictured)
The death of Nahel, a 17-year-old with Algerian and Moroccan parents, has stoked longstanding complaints of discrimination, police violence and systemic racism among law enforcement – denied by authorities – from rights groups and within the low-income, racially mixed suburbs that ring major French cities.
Since he was shot on Tuesday, there have been flashpoints in cities including Paris, Strasbourg in the east and Marseille and Nice in the south.
The Interior Ministry has poured up to 45,000 police onto the streets each night to quell the unrest, which has mostly been confined to the suburbs but occasionally erupted into clashes in tourist areas such as Paris’ Champs-Elysees avenue.
On Monday, the ministry said 157 people were arrested overnight, down from over 700 arrests the night before and over 1,300 on Friday night.
Three police officers were injured, the ministry said, while 300 vehicles were damaged by fire, according to provisional figures.
The grandmother of Nahel, who was shot by police during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, said on Sunday the rioters were using his death as an excuse to cause havoc and said the family wanted calm.
‘I tell them to stop it. It’s mothers who take buses, it’s mothers who walk outside. We should calm things, we don’t want them to break things,’ the woman identified on BFM TV as Nadia said. ‘Nahel is dead, that’s all there is.’
The riots amount to the worst crisis for Macron since the ‘Yellow Vest’ protests over fuel prices gripped much of France in late 2018.
In mid-April, Macron gave himself 100 days to bring reconciliation and unity to a divided country after rolling strikes and sometimes-violent protests over his raising of the retirement age, which he had promised in his election campaign.
Macron postponed a state visit to Germany to deal with the crisis and had to leave an EU summit early.
He is due to meet the leaders of parliament on Monday and more than 220 mayors of towns and cities that have been affected by riots on Tuesday.
Clashes between police and protestors continue after Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris, on June 30
French riot police officers stand guard next to a burnt out trash bin during a demonstration against police in Marseille, southern France on July 1
Riot police forces clash with demonstrators near the Arc de triomphe during another night of clashes with protestors in Paris, July 1
A man ducks down as police officers close in around him in Paris, July 2
Vincent Jeanbrun, the mayor of the Paris suburb of L’Hay-les-Roses, whose home was attacked while his wife and children were asleep inside on Saturday, on Monday described the situation as ‘a real nightmare’.
‘We have been going through a state of siege’, Jeanbrun, a member of the centre-right Les Republicains party, told BFM TV on Monday.
‘I have myself grown up in L’Hay-les-Roses in these large housing blocks’, he said. ‘We were modest, we didn’t have much, but we wanted to overcome it, we had hope that we would make it with hard work.’
In Nanterre, in the west of Paris, flowers and other tributes mark the spot where Nahel was shot almost a week ago. Graffiti calls for revenge and criticises the police.
And while tensions were still high, some residents said the material damage to vehicle and businesses should stop.
Forty-nine-year-old Josie Oranger said people who worked hard or borrowed to buy themselves a car or set up a business were being disadvantaged.
‘All it takes is one night of trouble, and they’ve lost everything. Itâs not their fault, everything that happened.â
The police officer involved has acknowledged firing a lethal shot, the state prosecutor says, telling investigators he wanted to prevent a dangerous police chase. His lawyer has said he did not intend to kill the teenager.
Meanwhile, a collection for the policeman reached more than 850,000 euros ($924,000) on Monday morning.
Just under 40,000 people had made donations to the online fund set up on the website Gofundme.com by a far-right media commentator.
The collection easily outstripped another one for the family of Nahel M.
Nahel’s grandmother said she was ‘heartbroken’ by the support shown for the police officer when she was asked about it on Sunday. ‘He took the life of my grandson. This man must pay, the same as everyone,’ she told the BFM channel.
‘I have confidence in the justice system. I believe in justice.’
Several politicians from the centrist ruling party and the left wing condemned the collection launched by far-right commentator Jean Messiha, who is close to anti-Islam politician Eric Zemmour.
‘Jean Messiha is playing with fire,’ ruling party MP Eric Bothorel wrote on Twitter, calling it ‘indecent and scandalous’.
A police officer has been handed a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide and placed in provisional detention following killing of Nahel on Tuesday
The head of the Socialist party, Olivier Faure, addressed a message to Gofundme, saying they were facilitating a ‘shameful’ collection.
Senior hard-left MP Mathilde Panot highlighted how a collection for a former boxer who had punched several police officers during ‘Yellow Vest’ anti-government demonstrations in 2019 had been quickly closed by authorities. ‘Killing a young North African, in France in 2023, can earn you a lot of money,’ she wrote.
The fund had reached 853,000 euros by Monday morning, with 37,874 people having contributed money. The biggest individual donation was 3,000 euros.
Officer Florian M. has been detained and charged with voluntary manslaughter.
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