Macron cancels trip over French riots as family buries teenager
More than 1,300 people were arrested in France during a fourth night of rioting and President Emmanuel Macron cancelled a trip to Germany on Saturday as the funeral took place of teenager Nahel M, whose shooting by police sparked nationwide unrest.
Macron's government deployed 45,000 police officers as well as armoured vehicles overnight to tackle the worst crisis to face his leadership since the "Yellow Vest" protests which brought much of France to a standstill in late 2018, Azernews reports.
The interior ministry said that 1,311 people had been arrested overnight, compared with 875 the previous night, although described the violence as "lower in intensity".
Finance minister Bruno Le Maire said more than 700 shops supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches had been "ransacked, looted and sometimes even burnt to the ground since Tuesday".
Local authorities all over the country announced bans on demonstrations and ordered public transport to stop running in the evening.
Several hundred people lined up to enter Nanterre's grand mosque, which was guarded by volunteers in yellow vests, while a few dozen bystanders watched the funeral from across the street.
Some of the mourners, their arms crossed, said "God is Greatest" in Arabic, as they spanned the boulevard in prayer.
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