Macron says France needs to address causes of unrest prompted by police killing of teen
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FILE - Cars burn after a march for Nahel, Thursday, June 29, 2023 in Nanterre, outside Paris. The killing of 17-year-old Nahel during a traffic check Tuesday, captured on video, shocked the country and stirred up long-simmering tensions between young people and police in housing projects and other disadvantaged neighborhoods around France. After more than 3,400 arrests and signs that the violence is now abating, France is once again facing a reckoning (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)Flowers lay at the tomb of Nahel Merzouk Wednesday, July 5, 2023 in a cemetery in Nanterre, a Paris suburb. Video of the June 27, 2023 killing showed two police officers at the window of the car driven by Nahel, one with his gun pointed at the driver. As the teenager pulled forward, the officer fired once through the windshield. Nahel's death caused five nights of unrest in France. (AP Photo/Cara Anna)FILE - A woman shows a poster "Justice for Nahel" during a march for 17-year-old Nahel, Thursday, June 29, 2023 in Nanterre, outside Paris. Officially, race doesn't exist in France. But the killing of the French-born 17-year-old with North African roots has again exposed deep feelings about systemic racism that lie under the surface of the country's ideal of color-blind equality. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)FILE - Police stand amid firecrackers on the third night of protests sparked by the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old driver in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, France, Friday, June 30, 2023. The June 27 shooting of the teen, identified as Nahel, triggered urban violence and stirred up tensions between police and young people in housing projects and other neighborhoods. After more than 3,400 arrests and signs that the violence is now abating, France is once again facing a reckoning. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
FILE - Cars burn after a march for Nahel, Thursday, June 29, 2023 in Nanterre, outside Paris. The killing of 17-year-old Nahel during a traffic check Tuesday, captured on video, shocked the country and stirred up long-simmering tensions between young people and police in housing projects and other disadvantaged neighborhoods around France. After more than 3,400 arrests and signs that the violence is now abating, France is once again facing a reckoning (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)
PARIS – President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called for order and calm, and efforts to address the roots of several days of unrest around France that was sparked by the police killing of a 17-year-old boy.
The police officer accused of the shooting death of teen Nahel Merzouk is in custody on a charge of voluntary homicide, and a judge in Versailles on Thursday rejected his request for release pending further investigation.
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“We all lived through an important moment in the life of our nation,” Macron said in the southern city of Pau on the edge of the Pyrenees. He said that France now needs “order, calm, unity. And then to work on the deep causes of what happened.”
He didn’t address what those causes are. The French leader has blamed parents of young rioters and social networks including TikTok and Snapchat for fueling violence that spread to around 500 cities and towns.
Some activists, along with residents of the low-income neighborhoods where the violence began, say the killing was the latest evidence of systematic police brutality and unaddressed racial discrimination in France. Merzouk was of north African origin.
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