France dispatched its elite GIGN commandos to reinforce beleaguered police as the country endured a fifth night of violence over the killing of Nahel Merzouk.
Some 45,000 police officers and Gendarmes were mobilised on Saturday evening after hundreds of people gathered to bury the 17-year-old police shooting victim in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
Arrests during a fifth night of rioting had risen to 719, the interior ministry said on Sunday morning.
“A calmer night thanks to the resolute action of the security forces,” interior minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted earlier on Sunday.
Rioting first broke out over the death of Merzouk on Tuesday. Merzouk, who was of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was driving a yellow Mercedes through Nanterres at 8am on Tuesday when he was shot. Protesters say his killing is typical of a heavy-handed and racist approach to policing
Darmanin said 200 riot police had been mobilised in the port city of Marseille, where TV showed footage of police using tear gas as night fell.
Rioters rammed a car into the home of the mayor of a town south of Paris, injuring his wife and one of his children, according to the mayor on Sunday.
Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun wrote on Twitter that protesters “rammed a car” into his home before “setting a fire” while his family slept. “Last night a milestone was reached in horror and disgrace,” wrote the mayor of the town of L’Hay-les-Roses. “My wife and one of my children were injured,” Jeanbrun said. “It was an attempted murder of unspeakable cowardice.”
Several schools, police stations, town halls and stores have been targeted by fires or vandalism in recent days but a personal attack on a mayor’s home is unusual.
Grégory Doucet, the mayor of Lyon, where dozens of police officers were injured on Friday night — including several by gunfire — called for urgent reinforcements, saying police in the city were “overwhelmed”.
The GIGN — France’s top hostage rescue unit — arrived in Marseille on Saturday evening, following a night of fierce clashes between police and protesters.
The Daily Telegraph, London
Call to stop Quran burnings
Cairo: An Islamic grouping of 57 states said on Sunday collective measures are needed to prevent acts of desecration to the Quran and international law should be used to stop religious hatred after the holy book was burned in a protest in Sweden.
The statement by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation was issued after an extraordinary meeting in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah called to discuss Wednesday’s incident.
“We must send constant reminders to the international community regarding the urgent application of international law, which clearly prohibits any advocacy of religious hatred,” OIC secretary-general Hissein Brahim Taha said.
A man tore up and burned a Quran outside Stockholm’s central mosque on Wednesday, the first day of the Muslim Id al-Adha holidays. The act angered OIC member Turkey whose backing Sweden needs to gain entry to the Nato military alliance.
Reuters