The grandmother of the French teenager shot dead by police during a traffic stop pleaded Sunday for rioters to stop after five nights of unrest, while authorities expressed outrage at an attack on a suburban mayor’s home that injured family members.

The grandmother of 17-year-old Nahel, identified only as Nadia, said in a telephone interview with French news broadcaster BFM TV, “Don’t break windows, buses ... schools. We want to calm things down.”

She said she was angry at the officer who killed her grandson but not at the police in general and expressed faith in the justice system as France faces its worst social upheaval in years. Nahel, whose full name hasn't been disclosed, was buried on Saturday. (AP)

Fewer than 160 people were arrested in overnight in connection to riots that have rocked cities across France following the killing of a teenager by a police officer, the interior ministry said on Monday.

The relative calm following five nights of heavy riots offered some relief to the government of Emmanuel Macron in its fight to regain control of the situation, just months after widespread protests over an unpopular pension reform and a year out from hosting the Olympic Summer Games.

The interior ministry said 157 people were arrested overnight, down from over 700 arrests the night before and over 1,300 on Friday night.

Three of the 45,000 police officers deployed overnight were injured, the ministry said, while around 350 buildings and 300 vehicles were damaged, according to provisional figures. 

Since the killing last Tuesday, rioters have torched cars, looted stores and targeted town halls and other properties - including the home of the mayor of a Paris suburb, which was attacked while his wife and children were asleep inside on Saturday. (REUTERS)

At least 78 people were arrested across France, including 20 in Paris, following unrest after the death of the teenager, who was fatally shot by a police officer in a Paris suburb, BFMTV reported.

BFM TV is a 24-hour rolling news and weather channel based in France and available globally via digital, cable and satellite television.

The situation seemed calmer on Sunday with 45,000 gendarmes and police mobilized in the country after five consecutive nights of riots.

France has been rocked by a wave of protests following the death of Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old of Algerian descent who was shot by a police officer in Nanterre earlier in the week.

Earlier on Sunday, the grandmother of the teenager appealed to protesters to end the violence and said that they should not damage schools or buses (ANI)

In 2022 alone, there were 138 documented incidences of French police firing shots at moving cars, while 13 people died in shootings that took place during traffic stops.

On Tuesday, the police killing of a 17-year-old of Algerian descent named Nahel in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre sparked unrest that has spread has far as Belgium. While not every deadly police action provokes protest, there are a number of allegedly racist killings that stand out in the collective French memory. (Read more about the cases)

Clashes between rioters and police continued for a fifth night on late Saturday and early Sunday in France, as young protesters targeted a mayor’s home. However, violence appeared to be subsiding in contrast to the previous nights. On early Sunday, French police made 719 arrests nationwide, assisted by heightened security deployment, reported AP.

Take a look at the latest developments amidst the unrest

??? At least 719 people were arrested during the 5th night of #FranceRiots on Saturday night following #Nahel's funeral.

The level of violence appeared to have declined since anger first broke out after he was fatally shot by police in Nanterre Tuesday.@leomcguinn? pic.twitter.com/vQsFJ49yGI

— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) July 2, 2023

The grandmother of the boy killed by police during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb on Sunday said she wanted the nationwide rioting triggered by his death to end, after a fifth night of unrest.

Identified as Nadia by French media, she said the rioters were using 17-year-old Nahel's death as an excuse to cause havoc and that the family wanted calm.

"Nahel is dead. My daughter is lost ... she doesn't have a life anymore," Nadia told BFM TV.

"Don't destroy the schools, don't destroy the buses ... I'm telling them [the rioters] to stop. (Reuters)

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday that Germany was watching the unrest in France "with concern".

French President Emmanuel Macron postponed a state visit to Germany that was set to begin Sunday because of turmoil on French streets in the wake of the police shooting of a teenager of North African descent.

Scholz, in an interview with Germany's ARD television, said that, while watching with concern, he was confident that Macron would successfully calm the situation.

"I don't expect that France will become unstable, even if the images of course are very distressing," he said. (Reuters)

China has lodged a complaint to France over an alleged attack on a bus carrying Chinese tourists, during the intense protests that have gripped the nation over the fatal police shooting of a teenage boy, DW News reported.

The bus carrying the Chinese tourists was attacked in the southern city of Marseille, which has remained a flashpoint of the violence.

China's Consulate General in Marseille filed a formal complaint, saying rioters smashed the windows of the bus, causing minor injuries, DW News reported.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the attack occurred on Thursday. The tourists have since left France, the consulate said.The Chinese consulate has further issued an advisory for its nationals planning to visit France. (ANI)

A video of 41 petrified Chinese tourists stuck in the riots in Marseille last night is going viral in China.

Their bus repeatedly came under attack.

Many people on Chinese social media write that they will never travel to France after seeing this. pic.twitter.com/7JpuYbkLXs

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 1, 2023

China has lodged a complaint to France over an alleged attack on a bus carrying Chinese tourists, during the intense protests that have gripped the nation over the fatal police shooting of a teenage boy, DW News reported.

The bus carrying the Chinese tourists was attacked in the southern city of Marseille, which has remained a flashpoint of the violence.

China's Consulate General in Marseille filed a formal complaint, saying rioters smashed the windows of the bus, causing minor injuries, DW News reported.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the attack occurred on Thursday. The tourists have since left France, the consulate said.The Chinese consulate has further issued an advisory for its nationals planning to visit France. (ANI)

A video of 41 petrified Chinese tourists stuck in the riots in Marseille last night is going viral in China.

Their bus repeatedly came under attack.

Many people on Chinese social media write that they will never travel to France after seeing this. pic.twitter.com/7JpuYbkLXs

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 1, 2023

Social media companies are once again under scrutiny, this time in France as the country’s president blames TikTok, Snapchat and other platforms for helping fuel widespread riots over the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old driver.

The fatal shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M by the police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday has sparked off violent protests across France, which have been raging for the last 4 days now.

From Nanterre to the northern city of Lille and the Mediterranean city of Marseille, demonstrators have burned cars, damaged buildings and bus shelters over three nights of clashes with the authorities. Click here to see more

A video of 41 petrified Chinese tourists stuck in the riots in Marseille last night is going viral in China.

Their bus repeatedly came under attack.

Many people on Chinese social media write that they will never travel to France after seeing this. pic.twitter.com/7JpuYbkLXs

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 1, 2023

For two hours, in a mood of anguish and anger, hundreds of members of the large French Muslim community lined up outside the Ibn Badis mosque in Nanterre to mourn a teenager, one of their own, fatally shot by a police officer at a traffic stop.

The shooting of Nahel M took place on Tuesday, followed by four nights of violent rioting in major French cities, and nothing suggested any return to calm as the young man’s funeral unfolded. His uncle, flanked by friends and security agents employed by the mosque, yelled abuse at anyone trying to film the proceedings. There were scuffles.

The police were nowhere to be seen, after 45,000 officers had been deployed overnight to confront the tide of rage provoked by a shooting at close range not far from the mosque that was caught on video. It would have been a dangerous provocation for any uniformed French police officer to appear. (Read More)

? Seven people were detained, most of them teenagers, after several shop windows in the Swiss city of Lausanne were smashed as young people gathered in an “echo” of riots in neighboring France, police said Sunday.

? More than 100 people gathered in downtown Lausanne, in French-speaking western Switzerland, on Saturday evening, police said in a statement

? It said that they were responding to several appeals on social media linked to several nights of violence that have shaken France after the police killing of a 17-year-old in a Paris suburb.

? Several shop windows and a shop door were broken, while officers dispersed youths who threw paving stones and a Molotov cocktail at them, police said.

? They detained six people ages 15 to 17 — three girls and three boys, with Portuguese, Somali, Bosnian, Swiss, Georgian and Serbian citizenship — and a 24-year-old Swiss man.

? On Thursday, about a dozen people were detained in the Belgian capital, Brussels, and several fires were brought under control. (AP)

? Young rioters clashed with police into early Sunday and targeted a mayor's home with a burning car as France saw a fifth night of unrest sparked by the police killing of a teenager, but overall violence appeared to lessen compared with previous nights.

? Police made 719 arrests nationwide by early Sunday after a mass security deployment aimed at quelling France's worst social upheaval in years.

? As night fell Saturday over the French capital, a small crowd gathered on the Champs-Elysees to protest his death and police violence but met hundreds of officers with batons and shields guarding the avenue and its boutiques.

? In a less chic neighbourhood of northern Paris, protesters set off firecrackers and lit barricades on fire as police shot back with tear gas and stun grenades.

? A burning car hit the home of the mayor of the Paris suburb of l'Hay-les-Roses overnight.

? The crisis posed a new challenge to President Emmanuel Macron's leadership and exposed deep-seated discontent in low-income neighborhoods over discrimination and lack of opportunity. (AP)

The home of a Paris suburb mayor was ram-raided and set alight while his wife and children were asleep inside during the unrest that has gripped the country following Tuesday's shooting of a teenager by a police officer, the official said on Sunday.

Vincent Jeanbrun, mayor of the southern suburb of L'Hay-les-Roses, said his wife and one of their two children, aged five and seven, were injured as they fled the building in the early hours.

Jeanbrun, from the conservative Les Republicains party, was not at home but at the town hall during the incident. The town hall has been the target of attack for several nights since the shooting and has been protected with barbed wire and barricades. (Reuters)

Young rioters clashed with police late Saturday and early Sunday and targeted a mayor’s home with a burning car as France faced a fifth night of unrest sparked by the police killing of a teenager, but overall violence appeared to lessen compared to previous nights.Police made 719 arrests nationwide by early Sunday after a mass security deployment aimed at quelling France’s worst social upheaval in years. (AP)

A few months after it witnessed massive protests over pension reforms, France is on the boil again. Over the last four days, protests have swept across France following the death of a young man as a result of excessive use of force by the police on Tuesday (June 27).

Cars and public buildings have been set on fire, and clashes have been reported between police and enraged protestors who have taken to the streets to rally against French authorities’ excesses.

As per figures from the French interior ministry, 994 ‘rioters’ were arrested on Friday night, with 79 police and gendarmes were injured and 2,560 fires on public roads recorded. Since the protests first erupted, over 1300 people have been arrested, with France deploying around 45,000 police personnel on the streets.

But why did the protests erupt? Read here. 

French President Emmanuel Macron postponed a state visit to Germany that was to begin on Sunday due to unrest in France. Macron spoke on the phone on Saturday with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and briefed him on the situation, a spokesperson for the German president said.