The French Ministry of the Interior noted on Monday that less than 160 people were arrested overnight in connection with riots that struck cities across France following the police killing of a young man. The Ministry stated that "157 people were arrested overnight, compared to 700 the previous night and more than 1300 on Friday night." It added, "preliminary figures indicate that three out of 45,000 police officers deployed overnight were injured, and damage occurred to around 350 buildings and 300 vehicles."
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin criticized families that allowed their children to create chaos in the streets, stating, "The average age of those arrested by the police was 17 years, with some as young as 12." Darmanin, during a visit to the city of Reims, emphasized, "It is not up to the national police, the gendarmerie, the mayor, or the state to solve the issue of a 12-year-old setting fire to a school. It is a matter of parental authority."
On Sunday, the grandmother of the young man killed by police in a suburb of Paris called for an end to the riots that erupted across the country due to his death. Since the young man's death last Tuesday, rioters have set cars ablaze, looted stores, and targeted municipal offices and other buildings, including the home of the mayor of a Paris suburb.
The relative calm has provided Emmanuel Macron's government with a chance to catch its breath in its struggle to regain control of the situation, following a few months of widespread protests against an unpopular pension reform, and ahead of hosting the Summer Olympics in a year.
