More than 600 people have been arrested in France amid ongoing protests in response to the deadly police shooting of a teenage boy earlier this week, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
Darmanin wrote in a June 30 post on Twitter that law enforcement officials had faced “rare violence” last night, which marked the third night of protests in the country.
The arrests came as the protest turned increasingly violent, with widespread looting, fires, and damage to public property reported across multiple cities including Marseille, Lyon, Grenoble, Annecy, Toulouse, and Saint-Etienne.
The protests in France were sparked by the police shooting of a 17-year-old teen identified only as Nahel M. during a traffic stop in Nanterre, just outside Paris, on June 27. The teenager, who is reportedly of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot at point-blank range by a police officer as he attempted to drive away from the traffic stop and drove through a red light….