Macron cancels trip over French riots as family buries teenager
World
Macron cancels trip over French riots as family buries teenager
PARIS (Reuters) - More than 1,300 people were arrested in France during a fourth night of rioting and President Emmanuel Macron cancelled a trip to Germany on Saturday as the funeral took place of teenager Nahel M, whose shooting by police sparked nationwide unrest.
Macron's government deployed 45,000 police officers as well as armoured vehicles overnight to tackle the worst crisis for his leadership since the "Yellow Vest" protests which paralysed much of France in late 2018.
A similar number of police would again be on the street into Saturday night, interior minister Gerald Darmanin told a press conference, with reinforcements sent to major cities Lyon and Marseille.
The French president postponed a state visit to Germany that was due to begin on Sunday.
The interior ministry said on Twitter that 1,311 people had been arrested overnight, compared with 875 the previous night, although it described the violence as "lower in intensity".
Finance minister Bruno Le Maire said more than 700 shops supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches had been "ransacked, looted and sometimes even burnt to the ground since Tuesday".
Local authorities all over the country announced bans on demonstrations and ordered public transport to stop running in the evening.
Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
