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The grandmother of the 17-year-old boy who was fatally shot by a police officer in a Paris suburb has called for an end to the violence that erupted in the aftermath of his death, as French authorities gear up for a sixth night of rioting.
Victim Nahel Merzoukâs grandmother appealed to protesters on Sunday, telling CNNâs affiliate BFMTV: âThey should not damage the schools, not break the buses, it was the moms who take the buses.â
âIâm tired,â the grandmother, identified by BMFTV as Nadia, said, adding that Nahelâs mother, âdoesnât have a life anymore.â
Meanwhile, security forces will again have more than 45,000 police and gendarmes deployed across France on Sunday night following the violent public unrest, the government said.
Many of the people detained since the protests began on Tuesday are minors, Interior Minister GĂ©rald Darmanin said Saturday, adding that the average age of the more than 2,000 detainees is 17 years old.
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The situation across France so far on Sunday has been less tense than Saturday, with only sporadic protests reported, but the violence normally kicks off after sunset, according to CNN producers in France.
French President Emmanuel Macron will meet the countryâs prime minister, interior minister and justice minister at 7 p.m. local time (1 p.m. ET) to take an update on the latest on the nationwide protests, the Elysee Palace said in a statement.
âAssassination attemptâ
Early Sunday morning, the mayor of a Paris suburb said his home was attacked, calling it âan assassination attemptâ on his family.
âAt 1:30 a.m., while I was at the city hall like the past three nights, individuals rammed their car upon my residence before setting fire to it to burn my house, inside which my wife and my two young children slept,â said mayor Vincent Jeanbrun of LâHaĂż-les-Roses, a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, in a statement.
âWhile trying to protect the children and escape the attackers, my wife and one of my children were injured.â
Jeanbrun said that he had âno words strong enough to describe his emotion towards the horror of this nightâ and thanked police and rescue services for their help.
The CrĂ©teil prosecutorâs office has classified the incident as an âattempted murder,â prosecutor StĂ©phane Hardouin told reporters Sunday.
Firefighters and french police operate during clashes between protesters and police, after the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old teenager killed by a French police officer during a traffic stop, in Nanterre, Paris suburb, France, June 28, 2023.
Hardouin said the initial findings of a police investigation suggest that a flaming car âwas launched to burn down the pavilion,â entering Jeanbrunâs property at around 1:30am local time.
âHitting a low wall, the vehicle stopped⊠before it could reach the veranda of the house. Only the front gate was hit, along with the familyâs vehicle,â the prosecutor said in a news conference outside the mayorâs home.
He said the mayorâs wife and two children, aged 5 and 7, fled through the back garden. While running away, the mayorâs wife hurt her shin which âappears to be broken,â according to the prosecutor.
Hardouin also said forensic police have found a fire accelerant in a bottle of Coke. He didnât specify which substance the accelerant was.
âEvery effort will be made to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice,â the prosecutor concluded.
France has been rocked by a wave of protests following the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian descent who was shot by a police officer in Nanterre earlier in the week and whose funeral took place on Saturday at a mosque in the Paris suburb amid a heavy security presence.
The youthâs death has reignited a debate on policing in Franceâs marginalized communities and raised questions over whether race was a factor in his death.
A GoFundMe page in support of the family of the police officer accused of fatally shooting the teenager had reached almost âŹ650,000 ($710,000) on Sunday afternoon.
The page was started by a far-right TV pundit and claims the policeman âonly did his job and is now paying a hard price for it.â
The officer has been charged with voluntary homicide and placed in preliminary detention, the prosecutor of Nanterre said earlier in the week.
In comparison, another crowdfunding page in support of Nahelâs mother had raised over âŹ97,000 ($105,000) at the time of writing. The page reads Nahel âleaves behind a mother torn apart by the loss of her only son. She needs our support to face the long trials that lie ahead.â
Hundreds detained
While the French government has deployed security forces and riot police across the country, the unrest continued with another night of protests on Saturday.
More than 700 people were detained across France overnight, according to a provisional tally from the Interior Ministry.
The statement added 45 police officers and gendarmes had been injured overnight, while 74 buildings including 26 police and gendarmes stations were damaged and 577 vehicles set on fire.
The previous night, more than 1,300 people were detained and 2,560 fires reported on public roads.
Meanwhile, China has warned its citizens in France to remain vigilant after a bus carrying a Chinese tour group in the southern city of Marseille had its windows smashed, resulting in multiple minor injuries, the countryâs foreign ministry said in a statement Sunday.
Chinaâs Consulate General in Marseille has lodged an official complaint and urged French authorities to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and property amid the unrest.
The ministry did not say when the incident took place or how many people were injured. It said all the tourists on the group have since left France.
CNN
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