Some relief, but with maximum vigilance, because episodes of extreme violence continue to occur. That was the prudent and very measured message of the French authorities after the fifth night of riots after the death of the young Nahel in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, by a shot during a police control. There was a palpable decrease in intensity, partly due to the spectacular deployment of security, although with very serious moments and 700 additional arrests.
In Marseille and Lyon, the cities most affected by the riots on Friday night, there continued to be incidents and looting, but the massive presence of law enforcement officers with armored vehicles and the overflight of helicopters was noted. The militarization of the operation managed to contain the excesses. There was also violence in Paris and its satellite towns, in Nice, Grenoble, Brest, Beauvais, Nimes and other cities.
The attack that took place against the private home of the mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Roses –on the southern outskirts of Paris–, Vincent Jeanbrun, of the conservative party Los Republicanos (LR), caused a great impact. During the early hours of the morning, some individuals drove a vehicle into the single-family house and set it on fire. The goal was to set the house on fire. The mayor was in the City Hall, converted into a bunker, surrounded by concrete barriers and barbed wire, but his wife and two children, ages 5 and 7, were sleeping at home. In their hasty escape from the house, they were attacked with high-powered fireworks. The woman fractured her tibia when she fell and ended up in the hospital. One of the sons suffered a facial contusion.
Jeanbrun denounced “an assassination attempt” and expressed his dismay at what happened. It is not the first time that the municipal facilities of this town, famous for its rose garden, have suffered attacks. The harassment against local politicians and French deputies predates the current revolt. In the case of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, it was a conservative mayor. Elsewhere, it is local left-wing leaders who are targeted by far-right elements in retaliation for their policy of solidarity with immigrants and asylum seekers. These are expressions of different signs of the tense climate in which the country is submerged and the systematic challenge to authority. Any representative of the State, any official in uniform –including firefighters, who were already frequently attacked in their interventions before the revolt– is considered a legitimate object of attack by young people drunk with chaos and destruction. In Nîmes, an agent was shot by a pistol, but saved thanks to his bulletproof vest.
Hours after the attack on the mayor’s house, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, together with the head of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and of the Ecological Transition and Cohesion of Territories, Christophe Béchu, traveled to L’Haÿ-les-Roses . They were accompanied by the president of the Île de France region, Valérie Pécresse. They came to express their solidarity with Jeanbrun and stress that this type of attack will not be tolerated. “We are not going to let anything go, we will be next to the mayors,” said Borne, who described what happened as an “intolerable attack.” The prosecution has opened an investigation for attempted murder.
In Paris there was tension all night on the Champs-Élysées after, through social networks, a spontaneous demonstration was called there. The most elegant avenue in France was taken over by riot police, who spent hours evicting people. In the capital alone, almost 200 arrests were made.
Nahel’s grandmother, Nadia, sent a message to calm and said that many are using the death of her grandson “as a pretext” for pure vandalism. “To those who are destroying, I say stop,” said the woman on the BFM-TV station. Stop destroying the schools, the buses.”
Darmanin confirmed that, for the night from Sunday to Monday, the same device of 45,000 police officers and gendarmes was maintained in the territory of metropolitan France.
