Riot police deployed in Paris as youths set cars ablaze
File picture: Alex Turnbull / AP Photo. File picture: Alex Turnbull / AP Photo.
Paris - Riot police were deployed in force
as youths set cars ablaze in some low-income housing estates in
the Paris suburbs overnight, online news reports and postings on
Twitter showed on Wednesday, amid tensions heightened by the
coronavirus lockdown.
The latest unrest in the banlieues - high-rise, low-income
neighbourhoods - flared after an 18-year old died last weekend
in a motorbike accident in the suburb of Argenteuil.
An investigation into the death of Sabri Choubi was ongoing,
said the prosecutor's department for the district of Pontoise,
which handles judicial matters for Argenteuil. It added that
initial findings did not show Choubi's motorcycle had been in a
collision with a police car, as some of the victim's associates
had alleged.
Officials at the Paris police department could not be
immediately reached for comment on the unrest overnight, but the
AnonymeCitoyen twitter feed and residents in the suburb of
Argenteuil posted videos and photographs of burnt out cars and
riot police in the area.
Residents in the nearby suburb of Bezons also posted videos
on Twitter of a large fire, though it was unclear what was
burning.
France's banlieues are frequently flashpoints of anger over
social and economic inequality and allegations of heavy-handed
policing.