France police shooting latest: Overnight curfew imposed in Nanterre after officer charged with homicide

The French National Assembly observed a minute’s silence on Wednesday, June 28, in memory of a 17-year-old delivery driver who was fatally shot by a police officer in a Paris suburb this week.

Footage of the incident shared on social media shows two police officers at the window of a yellow car and the sound of a gunshot before the vehicle pulls away on Tuesday.

Protests erupted in the two days following the shooting, with firecrackers thrown at police and cars set on fire while officers fired tear gas.

The officer was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

A Paris-area city of 54,000 has announced it is imposing a night-time curfew that will stretch throughout the weekend in response to unrest sparked by the deadly police shooting of a teenage boy in a suburb.

The city of Clamart, in the southwestern suburb of the French capital, announced the extraordinary measure in a statement on its website on Thursday.

It said the night curfew would begin at 9 p.m. and last until 6 a.m. – Thursday evening through Monday.

After two nights of unrest in the city, the “risk of new disturbances to public order” was cited as the reason for the decision. “Clamart is a safe and tranquil city and we are committed to keeping it that way,” it said.

Sophia came to the French capital to celebrate her 18th birthday – instead we were caught up in a bloodbath in the suburbs, she writes Amelia Loulli. She will never forget what she saw:

A French police officer has been charged with the close-range killing of a teenager and has been remanded in custody ahead of his trial, sparking protests and riots across the country.

The investigating judge charged the police officer with premeditated homicide and placed him in temporary custody for Tuesday’s incident, regional prosecutors said in a statement.

Anthony Cuthbertson reports from Nanterre for The Independent:

The march for Nahel had just ended when the police suddenly appeared, rushed out in ranks from behind the skyscrapers and clashed with demonstrators on the fringes of the procession.

For an hour and a half while the “Marche Blanche” marched through the streets of Nanterre in memory of 17-year-old Nahel, not a single uniformed police officer was to be seen.

It was to them that the chants were directed: “No justice, no peace”. The mother of the slain teenager led the crowd from the roof of a rented van. I was a few meters away from her when the march ended and the sudden appearance of the police brought tear gas canisters with them. She had to climb down the front of the van to escape.

Within minutes, buildings were destroyed and excavators set on fire as the crowd’s anger finally found a target.

The clashes show no end and one protester told me, “It’s like a war zone, the whole sky is black, the police made this mess.”

Buses and trams are to be phased out early so they don’t become “targets for thugs and vandals,” a Paris Region official said.

It comes as thousands of protesters are marching through the streets near the capital after police killed 17-year-old Nahel.

French President Emmanuel Macron was holding an emergency meeting as France was gripped by a second day of violence on Thursday over the police killing of a teenage boy of North African descent.

Clashes erupted in and around the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday evening, where the teenager, identified as Nahel M, 17, was shot at a traffic stop.

Nahel’s last name was not released by authorities or his family. His mother called for a silent march in his honor on Thursday in the square where the teenager was killed.