‘Context of Tensions’

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Hundreds of protesters defied an official ban Saturday to demonstrate in the capital against police violence, days after the country was gripped by nationwide riots over the killing of a teenager by a police officer in a Parisian suburb, Reuters reported.

Authorities dispersed demonstrators from Paris’s huge Place de la République and detained two people. Officials said it had banned the weekend protests, citing a “context of tensions.”

Demonstrations were also banned in the northern city of Lille, while a march in Marseille took place away from the city center along a different route to that previously planned.

Saturday’s protests were called by the family of Adama Traore, a Black Frenchman whose death in police custody in 2016 has been marked by annual demonstrations since.

But the planned marches followed days of unrest across France that saw the arrests of more than 3,000 people and some 2,500 buildings damaged.

The violence followed the June 27 shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M. by a police officer at a traffic stop in the capital. The weeklong riots underscored deep-rooted issues of racism, discrimination, and poverty among France’s minority communities, according to the Jerusalem Post.

But French President Emmanuel Macron and the government have denied institutional racism within the nation’s law enforcement agencies. The government has also rejected allegations by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, after the latter called for France to address “the structural and systemic causes of racial discrimination, including in law enforcement.”

Amid concerns of further violence, the government banned the sale and personal use of fireworks on the Bastille Day holiday next Friday. The pyrotechnics were widely used during the riots, leading to fires and injuries.