French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the ongoing violence in France on Friday as an "unacceptable situation" after a third straight night of nationwide protests over the deadly police shooting of a teenager saw cars torched, shops ransacked and hundreds arrested.
In a public statement after a crisis meeting of ministers, Macron said "a third of those arrested last night are young, even very young."
"Nothing justifies violence," Macron said, stoping short of declaring a state of emergency. "There is an unacceptable instrumentalization of the death of a teenager, which we all deplore, when the period should be one of meditation and respect."
A police officer shot dead the teenager, Nahel, who was of Algerian heritage, during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre earlier this week.
Footage of the incident captured by a passerby showed two officers standing on the driver’s side of the car, one of whom discharged his gun at the driver despite not appearing to face any immediate threat.
The officer said he fired his gun because he was scared the boy would run someone over with the car, Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache said.
Prache said that it is believed the officer acted illegally in using his weapon. He is currently facing a formal investigation for voluntary homicide and has been placed in preliminary detention.
Early Saturday, firefighters in Nanterre extinguished blazes set by protesters that left scorched remains of cars strewn across the streets. In the neighboring suburb Colombes, protesters overturned garbage bins and used them for makeshift barricades.
Looters during the evening broke into a gun shop and made off with weapons in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, police said. Officers in Marseille arrested nearly 90 people as groups of protesters lit cars on fire and broke store windows to take what was inside.
Buildings and businesses were also vandalized in the eastern city of Lyon, where a third of the roughly 30 arrests made were for theft, police said. Authorities reported fires in the streets after an unauthorized protest drew more than 1,000 people earlier Friday evening.
The Interior Ministry said 994 arrests were made during the night, with more than 2,500 fires. The night before, 917 people were arrested nationwide, 500 buildings targeted, 2,000 vehicles burned and dozens of stores ransacked.
Paris Aeroport, which manages Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports, reported road and rail disruptions from the capital to its airports from 21:00 local time.
As of early on Saturday morning, rail services from the UK to France on the Eurostar were scheduled as normal.
Around 17 million British nationals visit France every year, according to the Foreign Office.
Clamart, a Parisian suburb which was the first place to declare a curfew, announced restrictions between 21:00 and 06:00 local time from Thursday until Monday.
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