Macron cancels state visit to Germany due to unrest at home

France’s President Emmanuel Macron postponed a planned state visit to Germany on Saturday as his government struggled to contain violent protests following the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old last week.

Although the Interior Ministry described the overnight violence as of “lower intensity” than the previous night, more than 1,300 people were arrested as the unrest continued to grip major cities such as Marseille and Lyon. Hundreds of cars have been set on fire, buildings damaged and shops looted in some cities since protests broke out over the teen’s death on Tuesday.

Many protesters have identified with the teenager, who is named only as Nahel M. and who was of Algerian and Moroccan descent. Anger over the shooting is rooted in decades of complaints about police brutality and lingering feelings of neglect and racial discrimination in France’s poorer urban suburbs.

A funeral was held for Nahel on Saturday in Nanterre, the suburb outside Paris where he lived and where a police officer killed him during a traffic check.

The officer who fired the fatal shot has been detained while he is being investigated on charges of voluntary manslaughter, a rare action that has angered police unions, who said they were ignoring the presumption of innocence. They have also denounced the violent protests sparked by the shooting, with the largest of the unions calling those who have taken to the streets “ferocious hordes”.

Authorities have stepped up efforts to quell the violence by sending police reinforcements and shutting down public transport late at night. Some cities have begun enforcing curfews.

More than 45,000 officers, along with armored vehicles and specialist police units, were mobilized on Friday night to quell the riots, and the Interior Ministry ordered bus and tram services to be halted. The police reported the arrests of 1,311 people overnight said the Ministry of the Interior that 79 officers were injured.

Mr Macron is under pressure to prevent tensions from worsening. He was due to go to Germany from Sunday to Tuesday, the first state visit by a French president in 23 years. Instead, the French leader’s office said on Saturday that he “wanted to stay in France for the next few days”. Earlier this week, Mr Macron left a European Union summit in Brussels early, a rare step, to attend a crisis meeting in Paris about the unrest.

Postponing his trip to Germany isn’t the first time a domestic crisis has disrupted Macron’s diplomatic calendar this year – a planned visit to France by Britain’s King Charles III in March was also postponed amid protests against the pension reform plan of the French leader. .

On Saturday, several cities continued to restrict public transportation and canceled public events expected to draw crowds, including one Pride celebration in Marseillea concert by singer Mylène Farmer at the Stade de France outside Paris and an evening festival in Lyon.

In the southern city of Marseille, authorities said they would deploy more resources on Saturday, including a “massive reinforcement” of riot police and two helicopters, after protesters set fires and looted shops overnight. The police there arrested nearly 90 people and the mayor of the city, Benoît Payan, condemned the ‘acts of vandalism’.

In the eastern city of Lyon, the police said that 58 people had been arrested and that some officers had been the target of gunfire.

Bruno Le Maire, France’s economy minister, said on Saturday that at least a dozen shopping malls, 250 bank branches and more than 200 shops have been attacked in recent days, some set on fire and vandalized.

“These acts are unforgivable,” said Mr. Le Maire after meeting with trade and company representatives, who he said had shown “a lot of emotion, a lot of disorder, a lot of concern”. Insurance companies, he said, had been asked to pay out quickly to help them get back on their feet.

The clashes have also reached overseas French territories, including French Guiana, where officials said a government employee was killed by a stray bullet during a violent protest on South American soil.

On Friday night, France’s national football team – many of whom come from working-class areas – called “the brutal death” of Nahel “unacceptable” but urged those participating in the violence to stop.

In a statement shared by Kylian Mbappé, the team’s captain, the players said they shared the feelings of anger and sadness. But, they said, “Violence solves nothing,” adding that those contributing to the destruction damaged their own neighborhoods, cities and “places of fulfillment.”