As violent protests have continued across France unabated against the police killing of a teenage driver, rioters looted high-end retail shops as President Emmanuel Macron receieved widespread criticism for attending a concert of British singer Elton John amid the ongoing unrest.
The looting took place on Thursday night at the Rue de Rivoli in central Paris, just hours after the President was filmed at the capital city’s Accor Arena in the evening, watching the singer on his farewell tour, as rioters caused mayhem in the following the fatal shooting of the 17-year-old French-Algerian Nahel on Tuesday, reports the Daily Mail.
Gangs vandalised shops, as well as the high-end shopfront next to the Louvre and the Jardin des Tuileries.
The President was photographed arm-in-arm with Elton John alongside First Lady Brigitte Macron.
The photo ignited outrage overnight, with Thierry Mariani, an MEP with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, raging: “While France was on fire, Macron applauded Elton John,” the Telegraph reported.
In a statement on Friday morning, the Interior Ministry said some 249 officers were injured in the Thursday night violence, while a total of 667 people have been arrested since the violence first erupted on Tuesday night.
Of the 667 people, 307 people were arrested in Paris alone, reports the Daily Mail.
Emmanuel Macron has called for an emergency meeting on Friday.
Meanwhile, violence continued till the early hours of Friday morning, particularly in the southern city of Marseille, where protesters erected barricades, lit fires and shot fireworks at police.
Armoured police vehicles rammed through the charred remains of cars that had been flipped and set ablaze in the northwestern Paris suburb of Nanterre, where Nahel was shot dead.
On the other side of Paris, protesters lit a fire at the city hall of the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois and set a bus depot ablaze in Aubervilliers.
Some 40,000 police officers were deployed to quell the protests.
The police officer who shot the teenager has been put under formal investigation for voluntary homicide and placed in preliminary detention.
Nahel is the second person this year in France to have been killed in a police shooting during a traffic stop.
Last year, a record 13 people died in this way.
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