Just as it is written in the novel Guerrilla, The Last Days of France
"In the dark France of the near future, a police action in a Parisian suburb ends in tragedy. One of the trapped policemen loses his cool and opens fire indiscriminately. The Islamist ghetto goes up in flames, and the whole country gets involved. Guerrilla , published in 2019 .
Creepy, isn't it? Because the mood in France is still undiminished.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin estimated that nearly 1,000 rioters were arrested last night for taking part in the most violent protests in years, which even forced French President Emmanuel Macron to travel home from an EU summit.
And why?
One of the most violent series of riots in the history of France was caused by a traffic control in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris.
a policeman fatally wounded a 17-year-old boy with his firearm,
who refused to stop with the policeman's order.
France is on fire
After the incident, France was engulfed in flames, and the authorities sent 45,000 police officers to the streets.
Clashes continue between the police and protesters, who are already shooting at the police with pyrotechnic devices, burning cars and public buildings in the suburbs of Paris and other cities in France.
In Mons-en-Barœul in northern France, for example, even the town hall was set on fire. According to the local mayor, some parts of the building were completely destroyed. Moreover, this was not the only fire affecting buildings during the riots. According to the most recently published recordings
during the thursday night riots the french police completely lost control over the big cities.
According to the footage, a bus garage was also set on fire during the riots in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers.
Macron is worried
On Friday, the French president held an inter-ministerial crisis consultation at the French Ministry of the Interior. Macron added that Internet social networking sites play a decisive role in the events of the past few days.
According to the French president, violent gatherings at night are organized on Snapchat, TikTok and other social media sites, and there is a competition among young people to copy the violence.
"Sometimes we get the feeling that some people on the street continue playing video games that got them drunk"
he added. He also indicated that the authorities oblige the service providers to delete the recordings of the riots and to identify the users. According to police sources, three-quarters of the 875 rioters brought before dawn on Friday are minors, the average age of the rioters is 17 years.
At the same time, Eric Dupond-Moretti, France's Minister of Justice, said that "justice is not done on TV or on social media." He also emphasized that anyone who attacks the police or the justice system is an accomplice to everything that happens during the riots. As he put it: he understands the violent emotions of the protesters, since a young man lost his life, but he also said:
as a result of the riots, for example, a policeman was almost burned alive, and the head of the ministry warned the French population to remain calm.
The first fatality of the French riots was a 19-year-old man who fell from the roof of a Lidl while looting.
What should a police officer do if he feels his life is in danger?
The police also ran out of patience
The statements of the French president and the minister of justice are not at all unfounded, as France's two largest unions representing police officers issued a joint statement on Friday, in which they emphasized that the rule of law must be restored "by all means (...) as quickly as possible". Called ALLIANCE and UNSA,
according to the unions representing the French police, "calm requests" are no longer enough, order must now be "enforced".
Mateusz Morawiecki also reacted to what happened
The Polish Prime Minister published a video on his Twitter page comparing Polish and French "weekdays". The video shows footage of the ongoing migrant riots in Paris: burnt cars, barricades and armored riot police vehicles, as well as footage of shops being looted.
On the other hand, the video shows how the summer days pass in Warsaw, in the orderly city, young people are calmly walking and shopping, young girls are talking to each other, and families are having a picnic in a park.
Mbappe also spoke
Kylian Mbappe, the French football star, also reacted to the riots. "Violence doesn't solve anything," he said, and asked his followers to replace it with "mourning, dialogue and reconstruction."
Featured image: MTI/EPA/Yoan Valat