France riots: Another night of looting and lawlessness – and nobody knows what will happen next
On Pont Neuf, right in the very heart of Paris, a blend of people. Tourists, smart-dressed locals, and lots of police officers in riot gear.
The violence and destruction that has engulfed some of the capital’s suburbs may have not taken over central Paris, but the tentacles of disorder have reached the middle of the city.
As we stood on the bridge, we could see blue lights behind and in front of us, sirens echoing off the buildings.
Near a smart shopping centre, the riot police have arrived in numbers to chase down those who seem intent on causing damage. We can see people being arrested, searched and then put into the back of a van.
As I watch, I catch the eye of one of them – a teenager, probably 16 or 17 years old, dressed in black clothes from head to toe.
He looks completely untroubled by falling into the hands of the police, and returns my gaze with deliberate indifference.
My guess is that this isn’t the first time he’s seen the back of a police van.
A bin burns, billowing smoke into the air; the riot police run down a road to the accompaniment of a busker, who starts playing Careless Whisper as he sees them.
A man, standing with his girlfriend, starts shouting questions at them as they run past. It is a curious blend of the normal and the abnormal.
Because what is happening in France is volatile and unpredictable. Marseille, the country’s second biggest city, succumbed to a night of such looting and lawlessness that, a little after midnight, the government announced it would be sending reinforcements down to the south.
A hurried decision; surely a sign that, for all their words about determination and calls for calm, the government is still playing catch-up.
The interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, said that, despite hundreds of arrests, the intensity of the violence had gone down. That may have been true in some places but not everywhere.
In Marseille, for instance, there was an explosion so large that it created a mushroom cloud.
But in Nanterre, where this wave of violence first started, the streets did seem calmer. The frenzied destruction of Thursday night and the early hours of Friday morning seemed to have dissipated slightly.
Albeit there were still roads blocked by flames, youths throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails and police armoured vehicles on the roads. Incredible to think that we could look at all that and think the situation might have improved.
Perhaps people are gradually growing weary of all this damage. Kylian Mbappe, France’s most famous footballer, who grew up in the Paris suburbs, released a thoughtful and eloquent statement asking for the violence to stop.
“It is your property you are destroying, your neighbourhoods, your cities…there are other peaceful and constructive ways to express yourself.”
Read more:
45,000 police deployed as unrest spreads across France
Kylian Mbappe calls for calm as riots continue across France
Killed teen’s name shared almost half a million times
It is a noble sentiment, and there are many who will welcome it, not least those whose cars have been burnt, or whose businesses looted. But there is no guarantee it will be followed.
Today is Nahel’s funeral, which will throw another spotlight upon his death and upon the wholly fractious relationship between his community and the police.
A couple of days ago, a march in his memory ended with tear gas, baton charges and fighting across the very place where Nahel’s life came to an end.
At that march, there were posters and T-shirts demanding “Justice for Nahel”. But there is another slogan emblazoned on walls around Nanterre and beyond that reads “Vengeance for Nahel”. And those are two very different concepts.
So how will his funeral play out, and how will the inevitable tensions express themselves? As with so many things over the past few days, we simply don’t know.
We, like the residents, the police, the government and the people of France, will simply have to wait and see what happens.
World
President Raisi’s death a perilous moment for Iran regime – but don’t expect a change to foreign policy
This is a delicate time for Iran. President Raisi was the second most important man in Iran, after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
His death, now confirmed, will have far-reaching consequences.
Although Khamenei has tried to reassure the country in recent hours, the regime will know this is a perilous moment that must be handled carefully.
Live updates – Iranian president killed in crash
There are mechanisms to protect the regime in events like this and the Revolutionary Guard, which was founded in 1979 precisely for that purpose, will be a major player in what comes next.
In the immediate term, vice-president Mohammed Mokhber will assume control and elections will be held within 50 days.
Mokhber isn’t as close to the supreme leader as Raisi was, and won’t enjoy his standing, but he has run much of Khamenei’s finances for years and is credited with helping Iran evade some of the many sanctions levied on it.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Drone footage of helicopter crash site
Raisi’s successor will most likely be the chosen candidate of the supreme leader and certainly another ultra-conservative hardliner – a shift back to the moderates is highly unlikely.
Likewise, we shouldn’t expect any significant change in Iran’s foreign activities or involvement with the war in Gaza. It will be business as usual, as much as possible.
However, after years of anti-government demonstrations following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, this might be a moment for the protest movement to rise up and take to the streets again.
Read more:
Who was hardliner Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi?
‘Butcher of Tehran’ had fearsome reputation – many will fear instability
Hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi wins landslide victory
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Islamic State may seek to take advantage
There are also many dissident groups inside Iran, including an off-shoot of Islamic State – they might seek to take advantage of this situation.
Raisi became president in 2021 at the second time of asking and only with a turnout of 41%, the lowest since the 1979 revolution.
The president was considered one of the two frontrunners to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamanei (pictured). Pic: Reuters
He was not a universally popular figure and many inside Iran will celebrate his death.
Consequences for supreme leader
Longer term, Raisi’s death will have consequences for the supreme leader.
He was considered one of the two frontrunners to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamanei on his death – the other being Khamanei’s son Mojtaba.
For religious and conservative Iranians, Raisi’s death will be mourned; for many though, it will be the passing of a man who had blood on his hands.
World
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi confirmed dead in helicopter crash after charred wreckage found
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has died after the helicopter he was travelling in crashed in a mountainous area of northwest Iran.
Rescuers found the burned remains of the aircraft on Monday morning after the president and his foreign minister had been missing for more than 12 hours.
“President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters, asking not to be named.
Live updates – Iranian president killed in crash
Iran‘s Mehr news agency reported “all passengers of the helicopter carrying the Iranian president and foreign minister were martyred”.
State TV said images showed it had smashed into a mountain peak, although there was no official word on the cause of the crash.
“President Raisi’s helicopter was completely burned in the crash… unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead,” an official told Reuters.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
President of Iran killed in crash
The crash happened in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province
As the sun rose, rescuers saw the wreckage from around 1.25 miles, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, told state media.
Iranian news agency IRNA said the president was flying in an American-made Bell 212 helicopter.
Read more:
Who is Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi?
Many will be fearing instability after ‘butcher of Tehran’ killed
Iranian TV showed the president on the helicopter during a trip to Azerbaijan
TV pictures from Sunday showed thick fog at the search site. Pic: IRNA
Mr Raisi, 63, who was seen as a frontrunner to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader, was travelling back from Azerbaijan where he had opened a dam with the country’s president.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, also died in the crash.
The governor of East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards were also said to have been on board when the helicopter crashed in fog on Sunday.
Iranian media initially described it as a “hard landing”.
The chief of staff of Iran’s army had ordered all military resources and the Revolutionary Guard to be deployed in the search, which had been hampered by bad weather.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to react to the news of Mr Raisi’s death.
“India stands with Iran in this time of sorrow,” he said in a post on X.
A helicopter carrying Iran’s president crashed during bad weather on Sunday.
But who is Ebrahim Raisi – a leader who faces sanctions from the US and other nations over his involvement in the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.
The president, 63, who was travelling alongside the foreign minister and two other key Iranian figures when their helicopter crashed, had been travelling across the far northwest of Iran following a visit to Azerbaijan.
Follow live: Rescuers search for president after helicopter crash
Mr Raisi is a hardliner and former head of the judiciary who some have suggested could one day replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Because of his part in the sentencing of thousands of prisoners of conscience to death back in the 1980s, he was nicknamed the Butcher of Tehran as he sat on the so-called Death Panel, for which he was then sanctioned by the US.
Raisi and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday. Pic: Reuters
Both a revered and a controversial figure, Mr Raisi supported the country’s security services as they cracked down on all dissent, including in the aftermath of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini – the woman who died after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly – and the nationwide protests that followed.
The months-long security crackdown killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.
People light a fire during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini in Tehran, 2022. Pic: Reuters
In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Ms Amini’s death after her arrest for not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
The president is seen as a frontrunner to replace Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured). Pic: Reuters
The president also supported Iran’s unprecedented decision in April to launch a drone and missile attack on Israel amid its war with Hamas, the ruling militant group in Gaza responsible for the 7 October attacks which saw 1,200 people killed in southern Israel.
Involvement in mass executions
Mr Raisi is sanctioned by the US in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
Under the president, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections.
Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine and has continued arming proxy groups in the Middle East, such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
He successfully ran for the presidency back in August 2021 in a vote that got the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history as all of his potentially prominent opponents were barred from running under Iran’s vetting system.
A presidency run in 2017 saw him lose to Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate cleric who as president reached Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
‘Very involved in anything’
Alistair Bunkall, Sky News’s Middle East correspondent, said the president is “a major figure in Iranian political and religious society” but “he’s not universally popular by any means” as his administration has seen a series of protests in the past few years against his and the government’s “hardline attitude”.
Mr Raisi is nonetheless “considered one of the two frontrunners to potentially take over” the Iranian regime when the current supreme leader dies, Bunkall said.
He added the president would have been “instrumental” in many of Iran’s activities in the region as he “would’ve been very involved in anything particularly what has been happening in Israel and the surrounding areas like Lebanon and Gaza and the Houthis over the last seven and a bit months”.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Environment12 months agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports1 month agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports7 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment1 year agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Environment1 year agoTesla advances Powerwall pilot project with German electric company