Third night of riots after police shooting

NANTES, France — Cars and buildings were set alight on Friday in a third day of rioting in western France over the fatal police shooting of a young man, the latest flare-up of tension between French police and youths in poor suburbs with large immigrant populations.

A policeman has been held for questioning over the killing of the man identified by local media as Aboubakar F. — an incident that risks inflaming strained relations in France’s deprived urban areas, where residents frequently complain of police brutality.

Around 50 cars were torched overnight in Nantes and there were arson attempts on a high school and a fuel station, the fire service said, but no injuries were reported.

There have been more than a dozen arrests over the riots, including one in the Paris suburb of Garges-les-Gonesse, where the slain 22-year-old grew up, after youths threw Molotov cocktails at police and set dumpsters alight early on Thursday.

On Thursday evening, around 1,000 people marched in Nantes calling for “justice for Abou” and demanding that the circumstances of his death be revealed.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, on a visit to Nantes, condemned the riots and promised “the fullest transparency” about the man’s death.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the government would do everything in its power “to calm the situation, ... it is our duty to restore calm to Nantes, as we wish to do countrywide”.

Local residents have been deeply upset by the scale of the destruction caused by the riots. “It’s too much, I don’t understand it,” kebab shop owner Yamina said, in shock as she inspected her burnedout restaurant and car.

(The government would do everything) to calm the situation, ... it is our duty to restore calm to Nantes, as we wish to do countrywide.” Gerard Collomb,