JABAR EKSPRES – French President, Emmanuel Macron, has said that the peak of protests sparked by the killing of a teenager of North African descent by police has passed.
“We must begin to restore a sustainable order as our absolute priority,” Macron told 241 mayors gathered at the Elysee Palace, Paris, as quoted by JabarEkspres.com from BFMTV on Tuesday, July 4, 2023.
Macron said that he would remain vigilant over the next few days and weeks, but emphasized that the peak of the demonstrations had passed.
French police re-arrested 72 people on the evening of Monday, July 3, 2023, during a nationwide protest movement over the death of a 17-year-old teenager from fatal police gunfire last week.
According to French Interior Ministry figures provided to Le Figaro daily, since June 27, 2023 police arrested a total of 3,846 people, and nearly 5,900 vehicles and 1,105 buildings were set on fire across the country.
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More than 260 police stations were also targeted by mobs and 808 law enforcement officers were injured since the beginning of the protests.
Protests have rocked France since June 27, 2023, when a police officer shot dead Nahel M, a teenager of Algerian descent during a traffic check in Nanterre City after he allegedly ignored an order to stop.
The officer who opened fire is facing a formal investigation for murder and has been placed under preliminary detention.
Protests began in Nanterre and spread to other cities the following night, including Lyon, Toulouse, Lille and Marseille.
Tensions rose following clashes between police and protesters.
Geoffroy Roux de Bezieux, chairman of the business and entrepreneurs’ network Movement of French Enterprise (MEDEF), said that more than 200 stores have been looted and 300 bank branches destroyed since the protests began, according to a report by daily Le Parisien.
While it is too early to put an exact figure on it, he estimated more than one billion euros in losses due to the massive demonstrations.
