PARIS — Three people have been arrested in Marseille following clashes with police, French media are reporting.
Videos and pictures on social media appear to show rubbish piles have been set on fire in several places, while police deployed tear gas to disperse crowds gathering in the port area of the southern city.
French newspaper Le Monde said one officer has been taken to hospital after being injured by projectiles thrown by protesters.
Six people have been arrested by riot police in Lille, near the border with Belgium, according to a police source quoted by the AFP news agency.
Fires have also been set by protesters in the south western city of Toulouse, Le Monde reports, but no arrests have been recorded there so far.
Curfews and transport cancellations have been imposed in some parts of France as tensions simmer over the police shooting of a teenager in Nanterre.
France braced for another feared eruption of urban rioting on Thursday night after the deadly police shooting of a suburban 17-year-old.
Tens of thousands of officers are patrolling the streets and commuters are rushing home before transport services are closed down early for safety reasons.
Despite government appeals for calm and vows that order would be restored, smoke from cars and rubbish set ablaze was already billowing over the streets of the Paris suburb of Nanterre following a peaceful afternoon march in honor of the teen identified only by his first name, Nahel .
A building was set on fire in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre as clashes between police and protesters continued into a third night. Some 40,000 police officers are being deployed across France to deal with any further violence.
Bus and tram services in Paris and the wider region were closed earlier in the evening. On Thursday afternoon, a march led by the boy’s mother erupted into violence and chaos.
Some officers were injured in Nanterre, near Paris, while footage showed cars on fire. Meanwhile, the police officer who shot the teenager has been charged with voluntary homicide and placed under arrest.
As protests break out across France for a third night running, some areas have decided to take precautions by stopping public transport earlier and enforcing curfews.
We’ve reported some of these already, but here’s a look at what we know so far:
Buses and trams in d’Île-de-France stopped running after 21:00 local time to avoid further escalations. The region, in north-central France, encompasses Paris and has an estimated population of 12 million.
Compiègne in the northern Oise region will impose a curfew from 22:00 to 06:00, starting tonight and ending on Monday morning, for all children under 16 years of age who are not accompanied by a parent or guardian.
In the Clamart suburb, southwest of Paris, a curfew was imposed between 21:00 and 06:00, and it will also stay in place until Monday.
And in Savigny-le-Temple, also within d’Île-de-France, a curfew solely for minors is in place between 22:00 and 05:00. Again, youngsters will only be able to walk around during this time if they are accompanied by a parent or guardian.
We’re hearing that French authorities are bracing themselves for more violent protests in various parts of the country.
The AFP news agency reports that an internal security note said the “coming nights” are expected “to be the theater of urban violence” — with “actions targeted at the forces of order and the symbols of the state”.
We already know that Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has arranged for 40,000 police officers to be deployed across France tonight, in order to deal with any further unrest.
Police clashes in Nanterre, the Parisian suburb where 17-year-old Nahel was fatally shot by police, look to be escalating.
Various French outlets are carrying footage of a huge fire engulfing the ground floor of a building, where a bank is located and thick black smoke is billowing out.
Firefighters are on the scene at the Crédit Mutuel bank, local media reports, and they’re trying to rescue people who are understood to be in the flats above.
One reporter told France 24 the situation has worsened in the last 10 minutes or so. “Around 200 people are here. Everyone is looking on shocked and hoping nothing awful happens,” the journalist said, adding that the fire grew “really quickly”.
Mounia, Nahel’s mother, told broadcaster France 5 that she doesn’t resent the entire police force — just the officer who fired the lethal shot that killed her son.
“I don’t blame the police,” Mounia said, but she added that the officer “didn’t have to kill my son”.
“He saw the face of an Arab, of a little kid, he wanted to take his life,” Mounia said.
She led a march earlier, in memory of her son, after saying he was “my life, my best friend”. In a video shared online, she said her 17-year-old was her only child. “They’ve taken my baby,” she said in the footage. BBC