Over 900 arrested across France as riots rage for 4th day

KABUL (Pajhwok): Several buildings, vehicles have been torched and stores looted in violence of France after the death of a teenager at a traffic stop in a working class suburb of Paris, according to media reports.

Cars and buildings set ablaze and stores looted and more than 900 people arrested, as family and friends prepared to bury the 17-year-old whose killing by police unleashed the unrest, according to media reports.

The damages remained widespread and violence also erupted in some to French overseas territories, where a 54-year-old died after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana, Aljazeera reported.

The interior ministry announced 994 arrests around France by early Saturday.

Some 45,000 police officers backed by light armoured vehicles were deployed on Friday, yet despite the heavy security operation looting and rioting took place in the cities of Lyon, Marseille and Grenoble with bands of youths pillaging shops, setting fires and pelting officers with projectiles.

Despite repeated government appeals for calm and harsh policing that has seen hundreds arrested, Friday witnessed daylight violence in several areas.

An Apple store was looted in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where police fired tear gas, and the windows of a fast-food outlet were smashed in a Paris-area shopping mall, where officers also repelled people trying to break into a shuttered store, authorities said.

The southern port city of Marseille experienced its second night of upheaval. Before nightfall, young people hurled projectiles, set fires, and looted shops, police said, including a gun shop where looters made off with weapons, and a man was later arrested with a hunting rifle.

Marseille mayor Benoit Payan called for reinforcements of French soldiers saying the “scenes of looting and violence are unacceptable”.

While the situation appeared calmer in Paris, authorities in the city of Lyon reported rioters again setting fires and pelting police in the suburbs. In the city centre, police made 31 arrests to stop the attempted looting of shops after an unauthorised protest against police violence that drew about 1,300 people on Friday evening.

In French Guiana, a 54-year-old was killed by a stray bullet on Thursday night when rioters fired at police in the capital, Cayenne, authorities said.

On the small Indian Ocean island of Reunion, protesters set rubbish bins ablaze, threw projectiles at police, and damaged cars and buildings, officials said. Some 150 police officers were deployed there Friday night.

sa

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