Macron aims at teens, social media amid riots
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron urged parents Friday to keep teenagers at home and blamed social media for fueling rioting that has spread dramatically across France following the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old driver.
In the face of a growing crisis that hundreds of arrests and massive police deployments have failed to quell, Macron held off on declaring a state of emergency, an option that was used in similar circumstances in 2005. Instead, his government ratcheted up a law enforcement response that has resulted in 875 arrests.
The interior minister ordered a nationwide nighttime shutdown of all public buses and trams, which were among the targets of three consecutive nights of urban unrest. Macron also zeroed-in on social media platforms that have relayed dramatic images of cars and buildings being torched and other acts of violence.
Social networks are playing a “considerable role” in the violence, the French leader said. Singling out Snapchat and TikTok by name, he said the platforms were being used to organize unrest and serving as conduits for copycat violence.
Macron said his government would work with technology companies to establish procedures for “the removal of the most sensitive content.” He did not specify the content he had in mind but said, “I expect a spirit of responsibility from these platforms.”
French authorities also plan to request, when “useful,” the identities “of those who use these social networks to call for disorder or exacerbate the violence,” the president said.
The police shooting of the 17year-old, who only has been identified by his first name, Nahel, was captured on video. The boy’s death has shocked France and stirred up long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects and disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Macron said a third of the individuals arrested Thursday night were “young people, sometimes very young,” and that “it’s the parents’ responsibility” to keep children at home.
Since a police officer shot and killed the teenager Tuesday in the northwestern Paris suburb of Nanterre, rioters have erected barricades, lit fires and shot fireworks at police, who responded with tear gas, water cannons and stun grenades. Police said at least 200 officers have been injured.
Macron’s government has deployed 40,000 officers to restore order and make arrests over behavior he described as “unacceptable and unjustifiable.”
There were riots in dozens of towns and cities across France, and the unrest extended as far as Belgium’s capital, Brussels, where about a dozen people were detained and several fires were brought under control.