France riots ease after massive nationwide police deployment

By Tara Patel

STREET unrest eased sharply in France overnight after a series of riots and looting touched off by a police officer’s fatal shooting of a teenager.

The number of arrests dropped to 157 into Monday, according to government figures, down from more than 700 the previous night and 1,300 the night before that. A firefighter died battling a blaze in an underground parking lot, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in a tweet.

While tensions have ebbed, the shooting of Nahel, a 17-year-old of North African descent, remains a flashpoint in a crisis over racism and inequality in France that’s drawing comparisons with America’s reaction to the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

“ We have to remain cautious,” Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said on France Inter radio when asked whether unrest had calmed down overnight.

French President Emmanuel Macron met with key cabinet ministers into the evening hours on Sunday in an attempt to craft a response to the violence, which is testing his authority and ability to carry out reforms. He kept some 45,000 police, special forces and armored vehicles deployed to contain clashes that have left hundreds of public buildings and shops damaged or ransacked in cities including Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Strasbourg.

Macron will meet on Tuesday with some 220 French mayors to discuss the situation, Agence France-Presse reported after the cabinet talks.

The unrest is another political minefield for Macron after he pushed through an increase in France’s retirement age that was preceded by months of strikes and protests. Images of riot police once again battling in the streets further tarnish the country’s reputation, potentially adding to the economic toll just as the government faces pressure to restore public finances.

“What Macron needs to do is develop substantive policies to address the problems faced by these youths,” Vivien A. Schmidt, a professor of European integration at Boston University, said by e-mail. “Unfortunately, however, it is not clear that he even recognizes the problem.”

The boy’s grandmother appealed for calm on Sunday, telling BFM TV that rioters were using his death on June 27 as a “pretext.”

French government spokesman Olivier Veran said “there is no political message” in ransacking a store during the night. “I don’t call these scenes of looting a movement,” he told France Inter radio.

T he rioting, mostly by youths from working-class neighborhoods, is once again laying bare the societal chasms. Some of the most violent clashes happened in the port city of Marseille, which Macron visited last week to pledge help for community projects.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Saturday tallied up damage to about a dozen shopping malls and more than 700 supermarkets, banks and stores, some of which were reduced to rubble. Nearing the height of the summer tourist season, countries including the UK have put in place travel warnings for France.

The French opposition at both ends of the political spectrum has seized on the crisis as evidence that the government is failing to ensure public safety and narrow economic disparity.

P oliticians including far-right leader Marine Le Pen have rallied to condemn one attack in particular—the ramming of a burning car into the home of the mayor of L’Hay-les-Roses, a Paris suburb. Stephane Hardouin, a public prosecutor, said authorities were investigating “attempted murder” after the mayor’s partner and two young children escaped the house through a back door.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin visited the town Sunday. “We’ll continue to bring order as quickly as possible,” Borne said. “No mayor will be left alone.”

Labor unrest and street demonstrations happen regularly in France but have taken on a more intense and confrontational tone in recent years, reflecting divisions within French society. Before the pension protests and the pandemic, the so-called Yellow Vest movement already caused widespread property damage.

The nationwide unrest prompted Macron to postpone a rare state visit by a French president to Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz called images of the clashes “very dispiriting” on Sunday. Nahel whose last name has been withheld by authorities, was buried Saturday in Nanterre, his hometown where he was shot at close range in a car. The officer who fired the gun has been charged with murder and is in pre-trial detention. Laurent-Franck Lienard, a lawyer for the officer, told Europe 1 radio that the policeman believed he needed to shoot. With assistance from Max Reyes, Iain Rogers and Jenny Che / Bloomberg

Institute.

None of the member countries has condemned Russia in U.N. resolutions, choosing instead to abstain. China has sent an envoy to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, and India has repeatedly called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

For Putin personally, the summit presents an opportunity to show he is in control after a shortlived insurrection by Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

“Putin will want to reassure his partners that he is very much still in charge, and leave no doubt that the challenges to his government have been crushed,” said Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

India announced in May that the summit would be held online instead of in-person like last year in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where Putin posed for photographs and dined with other leaders.

For New Delhi at least, the optics of hosting Putin and China’s leader Xi Jinping just two weeks after Modi was honored with a pomp-filled state visit by US

President Joe Biden would be less than ideal.

After all the fanfare Modi received from American leaders on his recent visit, “it would have been too soon (for India) to be welcoming Chinese and Russian leaders,” Kugelman said.

India’s relationship with Moscow has stayed strong throughout the war; it has scooped up record amounts of Russian crude and relies on Moscow for 60% of its defense hardware. At the same time, the US and its allies have aggressively courted India, which they see as a counterweight to China’s growing ambitions.

A key priority for India in the forum is to balance its ties with the West and the East, with the country also hosting the Group of 20 leading economies’ summit in September. It’s also a platform for New Delhi to engage more deeply with Central Asia.

“India glorifies in this type of foreign policy where it’s wheeling and dealing with everybody at the same time,” said Derek Grossman, an Indo-Pacific analyst at the RAND Corporation.

New Delhi, observers say, will be looking to secure its own interests at the summit. It will likely emphasize the need to combat what it calls “cross-border terrorism”— a dig at Pakistan, whom India accuses of arming and training rebels fighting for independence of

Indian-controlled Kashmir or its integration into Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies.

It may also stress the need to respect territorial integrity and sovereignty—a charge often directed towards its other rival, China. India and China have been locked in an intense three-year standoff involving thousands of soldiers stationed along their disputed border in the eastern Ladakh region.

Analysts say China, seeking to posture itself as a global force, is becoming a dominant player in forums like the SCO, where interest for full membership from countries like Myanmar, Turkey and Afghanistan has grown in recent years.

“The limitation with the SCO is that China and Russia are trying to turn it into an anti-Western grouping, and that does not fit with India’s independent foreign policy,” said Madan.

The SCO could also prove challenging for Washington and its allies in the long run.

“For countries uncomfortable with the West and their foreign policies, the SCO is a welcome alternative, mainly because of the roles Russia and China play.... I think that highlights just how relevant and concerning this group could be for a number of Western capitals, especially if it keeps expanding,” said Kugelman.