• Monday, 01 July 2024

Macron to meet with mayors a week after teen's death unleashed riots

Macron to meet with mayors a week after teen's death unleashed riots

Paris, 4 July 2023 (dpa/MIA) - French President Emmanuel Macron is to meet on Tuesday with more than 200 mayors of towns and cities that endured the wave of violence that shook the country following the fatal police shooting of a teenage boy a week ago.

Macron will express solidarity with the local governments impacted by the riots, which included shops and public buildings burned, businesses vandalized and looted, and vehicles and garbage bins set alight.

The government said he would offer help in repairing damaged city halls and public facilities.

On Monday evening, Macron visited a police station in Paris with Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin in a show of support for the security forces, broadcaster BFMTV reported.

More than 3,400 people have been arrested over the past week, while 684 police officers and firefighters sustained injuries in the riots, according to government figures.

Some 45,000 police officers had once again been deployed across the country in the evening to keep the peace.

But while tensions continue to simmer, the violence has been subsiding since Sunday.

There were no major outbreaks of violence on Monday night and Tuesday morning. In Nanterre, the suburb of Paris where the 17-year-old was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop a week ago, it remained calm despite some damage to property, BFMTV reported. There were 17 arrests in the greater Paris area.

Meanwhile, the economic costs were starting to be counted.

Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, the head of the French employers' association Medef, estimated the damage at more than more than €1 billion ($1.09 billion).

"It is too early to give an exact figure, but we are over a billion euros, without taking into account the damage to tourism," he told the Le Parisien newspaper late Monday.

Photo: epa