UAE calls for calm in France as riots, looting continue – News

Foreign Ministry reaffirms confidence in France’s ability to overcome current situation and resolve unrest

The UAE issued a statement on Saturday expressing its full solidarity with France. It emphasized the need to restore peace and order and to respect the rules and principles of law.

In a statement, the foreign ministry reiterated its full confidence in France’s ability to overcome the current situation and resolve the unrest. It noted that France was an example of a country that considered the interests of its people.

The ministry highlighted the UAE’s call for stability and security, as well as the protection of civilian facilities and state institutions.

The French Ministry of the Interior announced that amid the recent violence, 1,311 people have been arrested across the country, 45,000 police officers fanned out in an attempt to restore order, so far unsuccessfully. Some 2,400 people were arrested in the violence sparked by the teen’s death on Tuesday.

Protesters and rioters took to the streets of towns and clashed with police despite Macron’s appeal to parents to keep their children at home. Some 2,500 fires were lit and shops were looted, according to authorities.

The teen, identified as Nahel, was shot dead at a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday. The video shows two officers standing outside the window of the car, with one pointing a gun at the driver. As the teen drove forward, officers fired a shot through the windshield.

The farewell ceremony for Nahr began on Saturday, with family and friends watching the opening of the casket before he was finally buried in the town’s hilltop cemetery.

At the entrance to the cemetery, with central Paris visible in the distance, hundreds of people stood by the roadside to pay tribute to Naher. The crowd lifted his white coffin above their heads and entered the cemetery for the funeral, but the media were barred from entering the funeral. Some held folded prayer rugs. Before the burial, people held prayers in the mosque.

Applause rang out as Naher’s mother, Mounia M., dressed in white, walked through the gate to the grave. Earlier this week, she told France 5 television that she was angry at the police who shot her son, but not at the police force as a whole.

“He saw an Arab kid and he wanted to take his own life,” she said. “Police cannot pick up guns and shoot our children and take our children’s lives,” she said. For decades, race has been a taboo subject in France, which officially embraces the creed of colorblind universalism. The family originated from Algeria.

The police officer accused of killing Naher was initially charged with manslaughter, meaning the investigating judge strongly suspects wrongdoing, but more investigation is needed before the case can be sent to trial. Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prasch said the preliminary investigation led him to conclude that the officer’s use of the weapon was not legally justified.

Outrage over Naher’s death erupted in violence in Nanterre and many major cities including Paris, Marseille and Lyon, and even French overseas territories, where a 54-year-old man in French Guiana was killed by stray bullets.