Paris riots today: Police officer who shot teen dead under investigation for homicide as 150 arrested

French interior declares mobilising 40,000 police officers across France, including 5,000 in Paris, this evening.

The unrest across France, set off by the deadly police shooting of a teenager of North African descent during a traffic stop, has revived memories of riots in 2005 that gripped France for three weeks.

It forced then-president Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency.

That wave of violence erupted in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois and spread across the country following the death of two young people electrocuted in a power substation as they hid from police.

Two officers were acquitted in a trial ten years later.

Tuesday’s killing was the third fatal shooting during traffic stops in France so far in 2023, down from a record 13 last year, a spokesperson for the national police said.

French footballer Kylian Mbappe joined several teammates in expressing anger over the killing of a 17-year-old teen.

“I’m hurting for my France,” Mbappé tweeted. “An unacceptable situation. All my thoughts go to the family and loved ones of Naël, this little angel gone far too soon.”

Barcelona defender Jules Koundé expressed his disbelief at the killing, while lashing out at the coverage by the media.

“As if this latest police blunder wasn’t enough, the nonstop news outlets are taking advantage of it by making a big fuss,” Koundé wrote.

“Disconnected from reality, ‘journalists’ ask ‘questions’ with the sole aim of distorting the truth, criminalizing the victim and finding extenuating circumstances where there are none. An age-old method for masking the real problem.”

“A bullet in the head…It’s always for the same people that being in the wrong leads to death,” France goalkeeper Mike Maignan tweeted in response to Koundé’s post.

France’s prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, has criticised the use of firearms by the police in the incident involving fatal shooting of a 17-year-old driver during a traffic stop.

“The shocking images broadcast yesterday show an intervention that appears clearly not to comply with the rules of engagement of our police forces,” she said in parliament.

Several people have died or sustained injuries at the hands of French police in recent years, prompting demands for more accountability.

France also saw protests against racial profiling and other injustices in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police in Minnesota.

French prosecutor said magistrates will investigate a police officer for “voluntary homicide” after he shot and killed a 17-year-old driver.

Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache said that based on an initial investigation, he concluded that “the conditions for the legal use of the weapon were not met” in the shooting.

Two magistrates have been named to lead the investigation, he said.

Mr Prache said he requested that the police officer be held in custody. That decision is to be made by another magistrate.

Police and firefighters struggled to contain protesters and extinguish numerous blazes through the night that damaged schools, police stations, town halls and other public buildings, according to a spokesperson for the national police.

The national police today reported fires or skirmishes in multiple cities overnight, from Toulouse in the south to Lille in the north, though the nexus of tensions was Nanterre and other Paris suburbs.

Police arrested 150 people around the country, more than half of them in the Paris region, the spokesperson, who was not authorised to be publicly named according to police rules, said.

The number of people injured was not immediately released.

The French police officer who fatally shot a 17-year-old boy in a Paris suburb on Tuesday has been placed under formal investigation for voluntary homicide, a French prosecutor said on Thursday.

The deadly shooting of the teenager of North African descent during a traffic stop has triggered two nights of rioting across France, prompting president Emmanuel Macron to convene a crisis meeting with senior ministers earlier in the day.