Why are people protesting in France – and why is there a history of rioting?

Published

2 years ago

June 29, 2023

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Riots have broken out in Paris and other French cities after a teenage boy was shot dead by police during a traffic stop.

Thousands of officers have been deployed and more than 100 people have been arrested as protesters clash with riot police.

President Emmanuel Macron has held an emergency security meeting to ensure “peace can return”, while French stars such as footballer Kylian Mbappe and actor Omar Sy have condemned police brutality.

Here Sky News looks at what happened and why the suburbs of French cities have a history of rioting.

France stops public transport and deploys 40,000 officers

What happened in Nanterre?

On Tuesday reports emerged of a police shooting in Nanterre – just over four miles north west of Paris.

Video footage, which has since been widely circulated online, shows two armed police officers stopping a yellow car.

They lean into the driver’s window with their guns before the vehicle pulls away and one of the officers fires towards it. A separate clip shows the car crashed into a post nearby.

The Nanterre prosecutor’s office confirmed the victim was a 17-year-old boy, who has been named locally as Nahel M.

He died at the scene and the officer involved is being held in custody on suspicion of voluntary homicide, they said.

His mother appeared in a video on Instagram alongside an anti-police brutality activist, saying: “I have lost a child of 17 years old. They took my baby. He was still a child. He needs his mother.

“This morning, he said: ‘Mum, I love you’. I said: ‘Be careful’.”

In the aftermath, people took to the streets of Nanterre to protest, setting cars alight and throwing stones and fireworks at police – who responded with tear gas.

Buildings, including schools, town halls and the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics in nearby Seine-Saint-Denis, were also set on fire.

The violence has spread to other Parisian suburbs (banlieues) and cities elsewhere in France – from Toulouse to Dijon and Lille.

Police say 150 people have been arrested – more than half in the greater Paris region.

So far 40,000 police officers have been deployed to tackle unrest nationwide – including 5,000 in Paris.

Why is there a history of rioting in France’s suburbs?

Asked about the incident during a visit to Marseille on Wednesday, Mr Macron was quick to condemn the police’s actions, describing them as “inexplicable and unforgivable”. “Nothing can justify the death of a young person,” he said.

As he tries to manage the violent aftermath of the boy’s death, he will be all too aware of the heavily-entrenched tensions that lie behind it.

Dr Itay Lotem, senior lecturer in French studies at the University of Westminster, describes this week’s events as “nearly well-rehearsed”.

“A police officer kills a teenager from one of the underprivileged communities around Paris, triggering ripples of anger,” he says.

“Groups of disaffected youth take to the streets of the banlieue and target symbols of the state, whether police stations or schools.”

Timeline of French suburban riots

1979: Regarded as the first French suburban riot in the Lyon suburb of Vaulx-en-Velin after a young person of North African descent was arrested.

1991: In March, a department store and cars were set alight in Sartrouville, north of Paris, after an Arab teenager was shot dead by a supermarket security guard.

In June the same year violence broke out again in nearby Mantes-la-Jolie after a 32-year-old policewoman was hit by a stolen car and killed. Police later shot dead Youssef Khaif, 23, who was driving another stolen car in the area.

1992: The police station in Lyon’s Vaulx-en-Velin suburb was set on fire after 18-year-old Mohamed Bahri was shot dead by police after the car he was in drove towards a police roadblock.

1995: Riots broke out in several of Lyon’s suburbs after police killed Algerian terrorist Khaled Kelkal – one of the orchestrators of the 1995 bombings in Paris and Lyon. TV footage showed police shouting “finish him” before they killed him.

1997: Rioting in Dammarie-les-Lys, southeast of Paris, after 16-year-old Abdelkadher Bouziane was shot and killed by police, who also injured his friend.

1998: Riots lasted for two days on the outskirts of Toulouse after Habib Muhammed, 17, was shot by police during a car theft.

2005: Three weeks of riots and a state of emergency in the suburbs of Paris and other cities after two teenagers were electrocuted as they tried to evade police.

2007: The death of two teenagers, 16 and 17, whose motorbike crashed with a police car sparked two days of rioting in Val-d’Oise, to the north of Paris.

2009: Riots took place on 9 July and again on 4 July (Bastille Day) in the eastern Parisian suburb of Montreuil after the death of Mohamed Benmouna, a young Algerian man, in police custody.

2013: Trappes near Paris experienced rioting after a Muslim man was arrested for assaulting a police officer who had tried to lift his wife’s veil following the ban on face coverings in 2010.

2016: The death of a black man, Adama Traore, in police custody after he was restrained triggered rioting in several French cities and a wider ‘Justice for Adama’ anti-racist movement.

2017: Riots lasted almost two weeks after Theo Luhaka was arrested and claimed he was racially abused and raped by police with a baton in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris.

The origins of the ‘banlieue’ stem back to the years following the Second World War, when the French government began to provide social housing en masse. This resulted in thousands of tower blocks being built on the periphery of French cities between 1945 and 1975.

They were originally designed for lower-middle class families who commuted for work. But in the 1970s amid high unemployment and racial tensions following the Algerian War and the end of French colonialism, they became increasingly occupied by low-income, immigrant communities.

Underfunded by successive governments with poor quality housing and job prospects, they were labelled “problem” or “high-risk” areas.

Crime was high and young people on the streets would often clash with police, who had a reputation for a brutal, zero-tolerance policy of unrest.

‘Clean out the estates’

The first ‘banlieue’ riot was in 1979 in the Lyon suburb of Vaulx-en-Velin, which broke out after a local teenager of North African descent was arrested.

The most notable, however, came in 2005 and lasted for three weeks. It started in Clichy-sous-Bois, north of Paris, when two youths were electrocuted and died as they tried to evade police.

A state of emergency was declared after protesters burnt down buildings and set fire to cars.

Future President Nicolas Sarkozy, then interior minister, inflamed tensions by vowing to “clean out the estates with a Karcher” (a brand of pressure washer) and using the words “yobs” and “trash”.

These tensions “have only been amplified” by the far-right since then, Dr Lotem adds, particularly the National Front, which began achieving electoral success in the early 2000s.

The daughter of its founder, Marine Le Pen, who rebranded the party National Rally in 2018, has described Mr Macron’s condemnation of the police this week as “excessive” and “irresponsible”, saying he should “let them do their job”.

Although the 2005 violence sent shockwaves around the country and triggered a wave of reform programmes in the banlieues, repeated incidences of rioting suggest little has changed since then.

“When many rioters today claim they are not heard, they address 2005 as a moment after which nothing changed,” Dr Lotem says.

And for teenagers who do not remember 2005, “the frustration with the state has been nurtured through the politics of the post-2005 era”, he adds.

How is the government responding?

Leading an emergency security meeting on Thursday, Emmanuel Macron described this week’s “acts of violence… against a police station, schools, city halls” as “totally unjustifiable”.

But he insisted there must be “remembrance and respect” to the victim’s family and his community, particularly during the silent march that took place in Nanterre on Thursday.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said police seen in the video circulated “clearly don’t respect the rules of engagement of our security forces” and she hopes “calm will prevail over anger”.

Initially, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin described the footage of the incident as “shocking”, but in response to the rioting he said: “The state must be firm in its response.”

Dr Lotem says that although politicians want to appear sympathetic, there is still widespread distrust among the communities involved.

“The main bone of contention is the perception of the state as the main facilitator of police violence,” he says.

He points to the 2017 law – passed in the aftermath of the 2015 terror attacks in Paris – which gives the police more rights to use lethal force in the face of perceived threats.

According to French journalist and researcher Sihame Assbague, at least 40 people die during police interventions in France every year.

A police spokesperson confirmed that this week’s shooting is the third fatal one during a traffic stop so far this year. Last year the figure was 13 – an all-time record.

World

India and Pakistan were close to miscalculation either side couldn’t afford

Published

3 hours ago

May 10, 2025

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India and Pakistan were close to miscalculation either side couldn't afford

Both India and Pakistan claimed they didn’t want all-out war, or for things to escalate.

But given that those statements came within hours of airstrikes from either side, it’s easy to understand why the world was sceptical.

Fast forward just a few hours though and a ceasefire has been agreed – with the help of the US, who brokered talks and even announced the deal.

India-Pakistan live: Latest updates as ceasefire agreed

The agreement has sparked celebrations in Pakistan, with people in many cities, including Lahore, taking to the streets. Chants of “Pakistan Zindabad” – “Long Live Pakistan” in English – are ringing out.

But the deal doesn’t undo the events of the past two weeks, which will continue to weigh heavily on the minds of many here.

The military action has been the most significant between the countries in decades and dozens have died on both sides.

Just this morning, Pakistan inflicted some serious damage to India’s military sites and New Delhi did not waste time responding with further strikes.

It was a reminder, for many, of the uncertainty of the situation between India and Pakistan.

Representatives from each country will speak again on Monday and even with the strikes halted, for now, the next 48 hours will be a very testing moment.

Both sides have often shown striking strategic restraint. And in the past fortnight, neither has launched a full-scale attack.

But their enmity has been enduring, and even with the agreement in place, it feels a bit complacent to assume India and Pakistan will just walk back from the brink.

World

Terror group supporters posted on TikTok, YouTube and Google from site targeted in Indian airstrikes

Published

6 hours ago

May 10, 2025

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Terror group supporters posted on TikTok, YouTube and Google from site targeted in Indian airstrikes

Social media accounts expressing support for a Pakistan-based terror group linked to al Qaeda appear to have posted recent videos from a Pakistan mosque targeted by Indian airstrikes.

Sky News has found videos posted on TikTok, YouTube and Google that appear to be filmed at the Markaz Taiba Mosque in Muridke. The captions and usernames contain expressions of support for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and a group called ‘313’.

Sky News has found and geolocated multiple videos that appear to be filmed in the area where the captions include either or both ‘313’ and LeT.

Some of the videos show men in the streets with guns. Another post captioned a video of children doing martial arts training inside the targeted mosque, “we are little soldiers, and we fight the non-believers”.

The caption uses the hashtag #جہاد313, which translates to ‘313’ jihad.

‘313’ appears to refer to the 313 Brigade, a proscribed terror organisation in Pakistan.

In a TikTok video posted to the Google page for Markaz Taiba Mosque in Muridke, a man can be seen walking along the street with a gun.

The account that posted that video wrote in their description, “Lashkar Taiba, Mujahid Force, ‘313’ and Markaz Taiba Muridke”, self-proclaiming their support for the groups.

India’s retaliatory strikes on Pakistani-adminstered Kashmir and Pakistan on 7 May came after a deadly attack in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.

Gunmen opened fire on tourists, killing 26 people and injuring dozens in a popular holiday spot near Pahalgam, Kashmir, on 22 April.

LeT were accused by India of involvement in the Pahalgam attack through their proxy the Resistance Front, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

LeT, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN Security Council and the UK, focuses on fighting Indian control in Kashmir and is based in the Punjab region of Pakistan.

Pakistan denies allegations of terror camps operating in the country. This region has been in the control of the Punjabi government since 2010. The Punjab government condemned the Indian strikes, and declared a state of emergency across Punjab.

Muskan Sangwan, senior intelligence analyst at TRAC, a terrorism research and analysis consortium, told Sky News: “Brigade 313 is al Qaeda in Pakistan. It’s an umbrella organisation for members of several groups like Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Haqqat ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Jaish-e Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jundullah.”

Ms Sangwan explained that ‘313’ refers to the number of companions said to have fought with the Prophet Mohammed in the Battle of Badr.

TRAC have seen a recent uptick in TikTok videos and other social media posts that refer to ‘313’.

Many of the accounts are linked to each other.

Ms Sangwan said: “They [the TikTok users] mostly use ‘313’ as a hashtag… trying to push that hashtag to as many people it can reach on social media.”

Sky News sought to verify the location by comparing before and after videos from the strike location, and using the video released by the Indian army conducting the strike.

One video showing damage at the strike location was posted by a user with 313 in their TikTok username.

Below is satellite imagery that shows the destruction of the site.

In one TikTok, the video is captioned “bring your arms and ammunition and go to war”. The text on the screen of the TikTok is ‘313’ and he is carrying a gun.

The group are comfortable with having an online presence. On the Google tag for Markaz Taiba Mosque in Muridke, men pose for a group photo. Almost all the people in the photo have used ‘313’ on TikTok.

Ms Sangwan explained: “With these people from Muridke, pushing this propaganda on social media would generate a lot of significance in terms of recruitment and in terms of gaining support from local people and from other people.”

Sky News’ Asia correspondent Cordelia Lynch has reported on the ground in Muridke.

India says it struck Markaz Taiba, a site in Muridke about 15 miles (25km) from the border, which has long been claimed to be a terrorist training site associated with LeT.

MEMRI, a US-based research group that monitors terrorist threats, told Sky News: “It has been known for decades that Lashkar-e-Taiba has its headquarters in Muridke.”

Sky News contacted the Pakistan Ministry of Defence for comment. Khawaja Asif, Pakistan’s defence minister, told Sky News: “This appears to be a random video with background music added later – consistent with how TikTok trends often function. If this is to be considered credible evidence, we could produce millions of similar clips ourselves.”

Mr Asif also said that any suggestion that the mosque was used as a base by terrorists was a “completely false, social media made up hoax”.

On 7 May, after the strikes in Pakistan, the Indian subcontinent branch of al Qaeda issued a statement condemning India’s actions and encouraging its supporters to wage jihad against India.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

World

Ukraine and ‘coalition of the willing’ press Russia for 30-day ceasefire from Monday

Published

6 hours ago

May 10, 2025

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Ukraine and 'coalition of the willing' press Russia for 30-day ceasefire from Monday

European leaders including Sir Keir Starmer have threatened Vladimir Putin with fresh sanctions if Russia fails to comply with an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

The prime minister met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, recently-elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Kyiv on Saturday.

It is the first time the leaders of the four countries have travelled to Ukraine – arriving by train – at the same time.

They updated Donald Trump on the progress made on the so-called “coalition of the willing” plans in a 20-minute phone call.

Following the summit, the leaders announced an agreement that there should be an unconditional 30-day ceasefire starting on Monday, with the backing of the US president.

“All of us here, together with US, are calling Putin out,” said Sir Keir.

“So we are clear, all five leaders here – all the leaders of the meeting we just had with the coalition of the willing – an unconditional ceasefire, rejecting Putin’s conditions, and clear that if he turns his back on peace, we will respond.

“Working with President Trump, with all our partners, we will ramp up sanctions and increase our military aid for Ukraine’s defence to pressure Russia back to the table.”

It comes after Donald Trump called for “ideally” a 30-day ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow, and warned that if any pause in the fighting is not respected “the US and its partners will impose further sanctions”.

Security and defence analyst Michael Clarke told Sky News presenter Samantha Washington the European leaders are “rowing in behind” the US president, who referred to his “European allies” for the first time in this context in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“So this meeting is all about heaping pressure on the Russians to go along with the American proposal,” he said.

“It’s the closest the Europeans and the US have been for about three months on this issue.”

Mr Zelenskyy told reporters the agreed ceasefire should cover air, sea and land, and said that if Moscow refused, Russia would face new sanctions, including the strengthening of punitive measures targeting its energy and banking sectors.

The European leaders said the terms of a peace deal would be negotiated during the 30-day pause in fighting.

But the Ukrainian president said: “We have no illusions that the ceasefire will be breached.”

Mr Macron said the proposed ceasefire would be monitored mainly by the US and European countries and there would be “massive” sanctions if Russia did not agree.

Military officers from around 30 countries have been involved in drawing up plans for a coalition, which would provide a peacekeeping force in the event of a ceasefire being agreed between Russia and Ukraine.

This force “would help regenerate Ukraine’s armed forces after any peace deal and strengthen confidence in any future peace”, according to Number 10.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on Friday that Russia supported the implementation of a 30-day ceasefire, but only with due consideration of “nuances”.

European leaders show solidarity – but await Trump’s backing

Dominic Waghorn

International affairs editor

@DominicWaghorn

The hope is Russia’s unilateral ceasefire, such as it’s worth, can be extended for a month to give peace a chance.

But ahead of the meeting, Ukrainian sources told Sky News they are still waiting for President Donald Trump to put his full weight behind the idea.

The US leader has said a 30-day ceasefire would be ideal, but has shown no willingness yet for putting pressure on Russian president Vladimir Putin to agree.

The Russians say a ceasefire can only come after a peace deal can be reached.

European allies are still putting their hopes in a negotiated end to the war despite Moscow’s intransigence and President Trump’s apparent one-sided approach favouring Russia.

Ukrainians would prefer to be given enough economic and military support to secure victory.

But in over three years, despite its massive economic superiority to Russia and its access to more advanced military technology, Europe has not found the political will to give Kyiv the means to win.

Until they do, Vladimir Putin may decide it is still worth pursuing this war despite its massive cost in men and materiel on both sides.

As the European leaders pulled into Kyiv by train on Saturday, the screen on the platform announced the arrival of the “Bravery Express”.

Mr Zelenskyy accompanied them as they paid their respects at a memorial in central Kyiv to honour Ukrainian soldiers killed in the current war.