Paris and other French cities resemble war zones, with burnt homes and streets littered with charred cars, as the nation reels under the sixth night of violence triggered by last week’s police shooting that killed a 17-year-old boy of Algerian descent.
“In just six nights, over 5000 vehicles were set on fire, whereas around 3300 persons were arrested, according to a report from the Ministry of Interior on Monday,” French newspaper Le Parisien reported. Rioters damaged more than 1,000 buildings, the daily added.
According to the French newspaper Le Figaro, “police and gendarmes are paying a heavy price, with 700 injured in action” on Sunday night alone. Noting the carnage on Sunday night, the French daily reported that “at least 577 vehicles were set on fire in a single night, 871 fires were reported on the public highway, 74 buildings set ablaze.”
The French newspaper Le Monde summed up the devastation left behind after days of rioting largely led by immigrant youth.
The current round of rioting caused more destruction than the 2005 riots, which lasted for weeks. “According to several sources, five nights and as many days of violence have exceeded the severity of the riots in the fall of 2005, which lasted three weeks. Back then,” the French daily reported Monday. “These incidents occurred at night and in broad daylight, despite a considerable police presence, with more than 40,000 officers mobilized, including the use of armored gendarmerie vehicles,” Le Monde added.
The Times of London also compared the current violence with the riots of “2005, when Arab and black youths rampaged for three weeks in the banlieues (suburbs).”
The fires set by rioters took their first victim. “A firefighter has died outside of Paris trying to douse burning vehicles,” the state-owned France24 TV channel reported Monday morning. “The 24-year-old died fighting a fire in an underground car park in the suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis north of the capital, said Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.”
The establishment media in the U.S. and Europe tried to pin the entire blame on French police for causing the riots, first by shooting an innocent teenager and then using “heavy-handed tactics” against protesters.
“The shooting of the teenager, identified only as Nahel, bears some similarity to traffic stop deaths involving people of color in the United States,” USA Today concluded.
If you are only following the mainstream media, you won’t know that the 17-year-old victim of a tragic police shooting reportedly had prior convictions.
The New York Times described the migrant-driven mass-rioting as a “revolt over police violence and racism.” Not to be outdone, the Washington Post declared that “France is rioting over police brutality.”
The establishment media fails to explain why rioters — they fondly describe as “French youth” — are seen shouting “Allahu Akbar” and burning French flags.
The big media seems to have great sympathy for these marauding gangs of migrant men ‘trapped’ in a lifestyle financed by a generous welfare system. “Many of the very young rioters may have a sense of besieged Muslim identity,” Politico commented. “Young men of African and North African origin are much more likely to be stopped by French police than young white men,” the U.S. news outlet complained.
Nearly a week of arson and rampage appears to be generating a backlash among ordinary French. Over a million euros were crowdfunded for the legal defense of the police officer charged with the wrongful shooting of the French-Algerian teenager.
The newspaper Le Monde reported:
A collection for a French police officer who sparked nationwide riots by shooting a teenager dead during a traffic stop last week reached more than €1 million by Monday afternoon.More than 50,000 people had made donations to the online fund, set up on the website Gofundme.com by far-right media commentator Jean Messiha, who is close to anti-Islam politician Eric Zemmour. The collection easily outstrips one created for the family of the dead 17-year-old, Nahel M, which on Monday stood at €189,000. (…)Several politicians from Emmanuel Macron’s ruling centrist party Renaissance and from the left condemned the collection, launched by far-right commentator Jean Messiha, who is close to anti-Islam politician Eric Zemmour. (…)The police officer, named in French media as Florian M, has been detained and charged with voluntary manslaughter. In a video of the shooting, he can be seen with a colleague stopping a Mercedes which Nahel was driving without a licence, in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday morning.
The mainstream media fear President Macron losing ground to his right-wing rival, Marine le Pen, ahead of the 2023 election.
“Far-right leader Marine le Pen — whose party has been gaining in opinion polls — has seized on the opportunity to portray Macron as weak on law and order,” the UK Daily Financial Times noted.
[Excerpts from French media reports translated by the author]
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