Three months after the death of a teenager during a police check, thousands of people in France demonstrated against police violence across the country. There were clashes with the police in Paris.
In France, several thousand people took to the streets against police violence. There were around 100 protest events across the country. Numerous organizations have called for demonstrations three months after the death of a teenager during a police check near Paris. They complain about systemic racism, police violence and growing social inequality, from which residents of the suburbs in particular suffer.
The demands included stricter rules for the use of firearms by the police, the establishment of an independent investigative body into crimes within the police and comprehensive government investments in socially disadvantaged areas of the city.
Tensions at demonstration in Paris
At the rally in Paris, a police car was attacked by demonstrators with iron bars, French news channel BFTMV reported, citing police. Officials are said to have been injured.
Tensions also arose when windows of a bank along the demonstration route were broken from the crowd. The police brought the unsettled bank employees to safety. Elsewhere, protesters surrounded a police car, prompting an officer to get out and brandish his weapon.
Death of 17-year-old as trigger
After the death of a 17-year-old in a police shot at the end of June, there were days of serious unrest in the suburbs of France. Video images showed that the teenager did not try to avoid the officers during the police check, as they had initially stated.
Since then, President Emmanuel Macron’s government has neither presented a concept for improving the situation in the socially disadvantaged suburbs, nor has the police behavior been critically analyzed. According to a report by the Inspectorate General of the National Police (IGPN), a total of 38 people died and 66 were injured in police operations in 2022.