France unrest: Third night of riots after police shoot teen, officer charged

Paris [France], June 30: Major French cities saw a third night of riots as President Emmanuel Macron fought to contain a mounting unrest triggered by the deadly police shooting of a teenager of Algerian and Moroccan descent during a traffic stop.
Forty thousand police officers were to deploy across France - nearly four times the numbers mobilised on Wednesday - but there were few signs that government appeals to a de-escalation in the violence would quell the widespread anger.
In Nanterre, the working class town on the western outskirts of Paris where 17-year-old Nahel M. was shot dead on Tuesday, protesters torched cars, barricaded streets and hurled projectiles at police following a peaceful vigil.
Protesters scrawled "Vengeance for Nahel" across buildings and bus shelters and as night set a bank was lit on fire before firemen put it out.
Local authorities in Clamart, 8 km (5 miles) from central Paris, imposed a nighttime curfew until Monday.
Valerie Pecresse, who heads the greater Paris region, said all bus and tram services would be halted after 9 p.m. after some were set alight the previous night.
National police said on Thursday night that officers faced new incidents in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse and Lille including fires and fireworks.
In Marseille, France's second city, police fired tear gas grenades during clashes with youths in the tourist hot-spot of Le Vieux Port, the city's main paper La Provence reported.
"The response of the state must be extremely firm," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said earlier, speaking from the northern town of Mons-en-Baroeul where several municipal buildings were set alight.
The incident has fed longstanding complaints of police violence and systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies from rights groups and within the low-income, racially mixed suburbs that ring major cities in France.
The local prosecutor said the officer involved had been put under formal investigation for voluntary homicide and would be held in prison in preventive detention.
Under France's legal system, being placed under formal investigation is akin to being charged in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions.
"The public prosecutor considers that the legal conditions for using the weapon have not been met," Pascal Prache, the prosecutor, told a news conference.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation