A certain relief, but with maximum vigilance because there are still episodes of extreme violence. It was the message, cautious and very measured, 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 check. There was a palpable drop in intensity, partly due to the spectacular deployment of security, albeit 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 armored law enforcement officers and the overflight of helicopters was noticeable. The militarization of the operation managed to contain the excesses. There was also violence in Paris and satellite towns, in Nice, Grenoble, Brest, Beauvais, Nimes and other cities.
The attack on the home of the mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Roses – on the southern outskirts of Paris -, Vincent Jeanbrun, of the conservative party Els Republicans (ER), caused a great impact. During the morning, some individuals rammed a vehicle against the detached house and set it on fire. The goal was to set the house on fire. The mayor was in the City Hall, which had been turned into a bunker, surrounded by concrete barriers and barbed wire, but his wife and two children, aged 5 and 7, were sleeping in the house. During the hasty escape from the house, they were attacked with high-powered fireworks. The woman fractured her tibia when she fell and ended up in hospital. One of the children suffered a facial contusion.
Jeanbrun denounced “an assassination attempt” and showed dismay at what had happened. It is not the first time that the municipal facilities of the town, famous for its rose garden, have suffered attacks. The harassment of local politicians and French deputies predates the current revolt. In the case of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, it has been a conservative mayor. In other places, it is local left-wing leaders who are the targets of attacks by extreme right-wing elements in retaliation for the policy of solidarity with immigrants and asylum seekers. These are expressions of a different sign of the tense climate in which the country is immersed and the systematic challenge to authority. Any representative of the State, any official in uniform – including firefighters, who were often attacked during their interventions before the revolt – is considered a legitimate target of attack by young people drunk on chaos and destruction. In Nîmes, an officer was shot by a pistol, but was saved thanks to his bulletproof vest.
Hours after the attack on the mayor’s house, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, together with the heads of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and of the Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, Christophe Béchu, went to L ‘Haÿ-les-Rosesa. They were accompanied by the president of the Ile de France region, Valérie Pécresse. They attended to express their solidarity with Jeanbrun and to emphasize that these kinds of attacks will not be tolerated. “We will not let anything happen, we will stand by the mayors”, said Borne, who described the incident as an “intolerable attack”. The prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for attempted murder.
In Paris, there was tension all night on the Champs Elysees after a spontaneous demonstration was called through social networks. France’s most elegant avenue was taken over by riot police, who spent hours evacuating people. In the capital alone, almost 200 arrests were made.
Nahel’s grandmother, Nadia, launched a message of calm and said that many use the death of the grandson “as a pretext” for pure vandalism. “I tell those who are destroying to stop,” the woman told the BFM-TV station. That they stop destroying the schools, the buses”.
Darmanin confirmed that, on the night of Sunday to Monday, the same device of 45,000 police and gendarmes was maintained in the territory of metropolitan France.
