After the emotion, the action. The mayors of France called on the population and elected officials to gather Monday at noon in front of all the town halls, invoking “a civic mobilization” after the violent attack on the home of the mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne) which caused a wave of indignation across the country.
All town halls in France will sound their sirens at 12 p.m. during these gatherings, the president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF), David Lisnard, announced on Sunday. The shock caused by the violent car-ram attack on the home of Vincent Jeanbrun, LR mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne) caused great emotion in the country, where a return to calm However, it took shape overnight from Sunday to Monday after five nights of riots following the death of Nahel, 17, killed by a police officer.
Nahel’s grandmother calls for calm, a less restless night
At 1:30 am, the police had carried out 78 arrests on national territory (compared to more than 400 the previous night), according to the Ministry of the Interior, and no major incident had been reported. In Paris and its inner suburbs, 20 people were arrested at one o’clock in the morning, according to the police headquarters. In five nights of riots until Sunday morning, the Ministry of the Interior counted some 5,000 vehicles burned, nearly 1,000 buildings burned or degraded, 250 attacks on police stations or gendarmeries, more than 700 members of the forces of the wounded order…
After this sudden surge of violence over a large territory, would the calls for calm begin to carry? Sunday afternoon, the grandmother of the teenager killed last Tuesday in Nanterre, west of Paris, during a traffic check after a refusal to comply sent a message to the rioters. “Let them not break the windows, let them not break the schools, not the buses”, urged Nadia on BFMTV. “Tired”, “devastated”, she asked that the policeman who killed the shot pay for his gesture “like everyone else”, ensuring that he had “trust in justice”.
This wave of violence and the anger of many young residents of working-class neighborhoods against police or state violence recalled the riots that shook France in 2005, after the death of two teenagers pursued by the police. In three weeks, 10,000 vehicles had been destroyed, more than 200 public buildings burned down and some 5,200 people arrested.