French police confront rioters, shops looted on 4th day of unrest

July 1: Rioters have clashed with police and looted shops in a fourth day of violence across France, while unrest was also reported in some French overseas territories, following the police killing of a 17-year-old during a traffic check earlier this week.

Around 45,000 police officers backed by light armoured vehicles were deployed on Friday, yet despite the heavy security operation looting and rioting took place in the cities of Lyon, Marseille and Grenoble with bands of youths pillaging shops, setting fires and pelting officers with projectiles.

Despite repeated government appeals for calm and harsh policing that has seen hundreds arrested, Friday witnessed daylight violence in several areas.

An Apple store was looted in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where police fired tear gas, and the windows of a fast-food outlet were smashed in a Paris-area shopping mall, where officers also repelled people trying to break into a shuttered store, authorities said.

The southern port city of Marseille experienced its second night of upheaval. Before nightfall, young people hurled projectiles, set fires, and looted shops, police said, including a gun shop where looters made off with weapons, and a man was later arrested with a hunting rifle.

Marseille mayor Benoit Payan called for reinforcements of French soldiers saying the “scenes of looting and violence are unacceptable”.

Eighty people were arrested in Marseille among the 270 nationwide on Friday night alone, France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, adding in a tweet that “reinforcements are arriving at this time”.

By early Saturday morning the total number of arrests had reached more than 470, the minister told local French media, adding that the violence was “much less intense” than on Thursday night when more than 900 people were arrested.

While the situation appeared calmer in Paris, authorities in the city of Lyon reported rioters again setting fires and pelting police in the suburbs. In the city centre, police made 31 arrests to stop the attempted looting of shops after an unauthorised protest against police violence that drew about 1,300 people on Friday evening.

Violence was also erupting in some of France’s territories overseas.

In French Guiana, a 54-year-old was killed by a stray bullet on Thursday night when rioters fired at police in the capital, Cayenne, authorities said.

On the small Indian Ocean island of Reunion, protesters set rubbish bins ablaze, threw projectiles at police, and damaged cars and buildings, officials said. Some 150 police officers were deployed there Friday night.

(Al Jazeera)