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.
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.
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Sky News Europe correspondent Adam Parsons reports from Nanterre
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’.”
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Video shows moment of police shooting on Tuesday
Image: The victim has been named locally as Nahel, 17
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.
Image: Firefighters try to contain car fires in Nanterre
Image: Protesters let off fireworks, Pic:AP
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.
Image: A burnt out car in Nanterre
Image: Damage to a local police station
‘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.
Image: A burnt out van in Clichy-sous-Bois near Paris in 2005
Image: Nicolas Sarkozy meets French riot police in Perpignan southern France in 2005
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”.
Image: People march through Nanterre in memory of Nahel
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.
Image: French President Emmanuel Macron on his visit to Marseille this week
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.
The Pope has said he is “deeply saddened” by the deaths of three people in an Israeli strike on the only Catholic church in Gaza.
A further nine people were wounded when the Gaza’s Holy Family Church was hit, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said in a statement.
“On behalf of the entire Church of the Holy Land, we extend our deepest condolences to the bereaved families, and from here, we offer our prayers for the swift and full recovery of the wounded,” the statement reads.
“The Latin Patriarchate strongly condemns this tragedy and this targeting of innocent civilians and of a sacred place.
“However, this tragedy is not greater or more terrible than the many others that have befallen Gaza.”
Parish priest Father Gabriele Romanelli, an Argentinian who used to regularly update the late Pope Francis about the conflict in Gaza, was lightly injured in the attack.
Image: Parish priest of the Church of the Holy Family, father Gabriele Romanelli, receives medical attention.
Pic: Reuters
In a telegram for the victims, Pope Leo said he was “deeply saddened” and called for “an immediate ceasefire”.
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The Pope expressed his “profound hope for dialogue, reconciliation and enduring peace in the region,” according to the telegram, which was signed by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told the Vatican News website that the church was shelled by a tank.
“What we know for sure is that a tank, the IDF says by mistake, but we are not sure about this, they hit the Church directly, the Church of the Holy Family, the Latin Church”, he said
The church was sheltering both Christians and Muslims, including a number of children with disabilities, according to Fadel Naem, acting director of Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the wounded.
Image: Pope Leo XIV. File pic: Reuters
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it was “aware of reports regarding damage caused to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City and casualties at the scene. The circumstances of the incident are under review”.
“The IDF makes every feasible effort to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian structures, including religious sites, and regrets any damage caused to them,” the statement added.
Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement on X that the results of the investigation would be published.
It also said the country did not target churches or religious sites and regretted harm to them or civilians.
The previous pope, Francis, spoke almost daily with Gaza church. In the last 18 months of his life, Francis would often call the church in the Gaza Strip to see how people huddled inside were coping with a devastating war.
At least 20 more people were killed on Thursday by Israeli attacks across the besieged enclave, medics said.
Throughout the 21-month war, more than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military campaign, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Israel launched a retaliatory campaign against Hamas following the militant group’s 7 October 2023 attacks, during which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.
Syria’s president has said protecting the rights of the Druze population is “our priority” after Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking the minority.
In a televised statement early today, Ahmed al Sharaa told the Druze “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
Following the president’s announcement and a ceasefire agreement, Syrian government forces on Thursday largely withdrew from the volatile southern province of Sweida.
Under the terms of the agreement, Druze factions and clerics have been appointed to maintain internal security.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has pledged to “act resolutely against any terrorist threat on its borders”.
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The Druze population follow an offshoot of Islam and are estimated to number about one million, spread between Syria, Lebanon and Israel.
Sharaa – Syria’s interim leader after President Assad fled last year – gave a televised statement on Wednesday telling the Druze “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
“We are not among those who fear the war,” he added.
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Moment Israel strikes Syrian military HQ
“We have spent our lives facing challenges and defending our people, but we have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction,” said the president.
He also claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
Israel has accused the Syrian regime of being barely disguised jihadists – despite warming ties with Western countries such as the UK and US.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as of Wednesday morning, more than 300 people had been killed in the flare-up of violence.
Around 1,000 Druze people broke through a fence into southern Syria on Wednesday in a bid to help, according to The Times of Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu urged people not to cross into Syria and Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir warned they would not “allow southern Syria to become a terror stronghold”.
The UN Security Council will discuss the situation today, despite the US secretary of state saying yesterday that America had brokered an end to the violence.
“We have engaged all the parties involved in the clashes in Syria,” Marco Rubio said on social media.
“We have agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight.”
Image: Syrian soldiers were seen pulling out of Sweida overnight. Pic: Reuters
The intervention appeared to have an immediate effect.
The situation was calm on Thursday morning, according to Reuters sources in the area.
A sex scandal has rocked Thailand’s Buddhist clergy after a woman allegedly enticed a string of monks into having sex with her and then blackmailed them.
At least nine abbots and senior monks have been disrobed and cast out of the monkhood, the Royal Thai Police Central Investigation Bureau said.
Wilawan Emsawat, in her mid-30s, is accused of enticing senior monks into having sex with her and then pressuring them into making large payments to cover it up.
Thai monks are largely members of the Theravada sect, which requires them to be celibate and refrain from even touching a woman.
Several monks transferred large amounts of money after Wilawan initiated romantic relationships with them, police said -her bank accounts received around 385 million baht (£8.8m) in the past three years, with most of that spent on gambling websites.
Wilawan was arrested at her home in Nonthaburi province, north of the capital Bangkok, on charges including extortion, money laundering and receiving stolen goods.
Thai media reported a search of her mobile phones revealed tens of thousands of photos and videos, as well as numerous chat logs indicating intimacy with several monks, many of which could be used for blackmail.
Image: Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau holding a press conference in Bangkok. Pic: Central Investigation Bureau/AP
An investigation was launched last month after an abbot of a famous temple in Bangkok abruptly left the monkhood.
He had allegedly been blackmailed by Wilawan over their romantic relationship, investigators found.
She told the monk she was pregnant and asked him to pay her 7.2 million baht (£165,000), Jaroonkiat Pankaew, a Central Investigation Bureau deputy commissioner, said at a news conference in Bangkok on Tuesday.
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Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai ordered authorities to review and consider tightening existing laws related to monks and temples, especially the transparency of temple finances, to restore faith in Buddhism, government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said on Tuesday.
The Central Investigation Bureau has set up a Facebook page for people to report monks who misbehave, Mr Jaroonkiat said.
“We will investigate monks across the country,” he said. “I believe that the ripple effects of this investigation will lead to a lot of changes.”