Riot erupts in Paris over French police killing of Chinese man

● Protesters claim unarmed father was killed by officers in front of his children

Violence in Paris over the police killing of a Chinese man has left three police officers injured and at least 35 people detained.

Demonstrators had gathered outside a police station on Monday to pay homage to the dead man.

Father-of-five Liu Shaoyo, who was 56, was shot dead on Sunday night.

Police say he attacked an officer with a sharp object as soon as he came to the door and the officer was only saved by his bullet-proof vest. Another officer then shot him dead.

His family denies he attacked an officer with scissors as they responded to reports of a domestic dispute.

The tensions have prompted China’s Foreign Ministry to express its concern to French authorities over the killing of the man, who it says was shot by a plainclothes officer.

Demonstrators from the Asian community gathered on Monday night outside the multicultural 19th district’s police station in Paris’ northeast, said Agnes Thibaultlecuivre, of the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.

They were angry at rumours the man was shot in his home in front of his children while cutting up fish and had not hurt anyone.

With chants of “murderers” and candles that spelled “oppositiontoviolence”lining the road Monday night, scores of demonstrators broke down barricades, threw projectiles and set fire to cars during the brutal clashes with police that lasted several hours.

Authorities said 26 demonstrators were held for participating in a group planning violence, six for throwing projectiles, and three others for violence against police that saw a police car damaged by arson.

China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency said that, according to witnesses, one man of Chinese origin was injured in the clashes.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that China had summoned a representative of the French embassy in Beijing yesterday and urged French officials to “get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible”.

France is home to Europe’s largest population of ethnic Chinese, a community that routinely accuses police of not doing enough to protect them against racism.

“Chinese are victims of racist attitudes in France - especially from other ethnic groups like Arabs. They are targets for crime because they often carry cash and many don’t have residence permits, so can be threatened easily. ” said Pierre Picquart, Chinese expert at the University of Paris VIII.