Macron says France needs to address causes of unrest prompted by police killing

Police patrol past graffiti reading ‘Justice for Nahel’ as youths gather on Concorde Square during a protest in Paris (Lewis Joly/AP)

Emmanuel Macron has called for order and calm – and efforts to address the roots of several days of unrest around France sparked by the police killing of a 17-year-old boy.

The police officer accused of shooting Nahel Merzouk is in custody on a charge of voluntary homicide and a judge in Versailles on Thursday rejected his request for release pending further investigation.

“We all lived through an important moment in the life of our nation,” Mr Macron, the French President, said in the southern city of Pau on the edge of the Pyrenees.

French President Emmanuel Macron addresses mayors of cities affected by the violent clashes (Ludovic Marin/AP)

France now needs “order, calm, unity”, he said, “and then to work on the deep causes of what happened”.

He did not address what those causes are.

The French leader has blamed parents of young rioters and social networks including TikTok and Snapchat for fuelling violence that spread to around 500 cities and towns.

Some activists, along with residents of the low-income neighbourhoods where the violence began, say the killing was the latest evidence of systematic police brutality and unaddressed racial discrimination in France.

Nahel was of north African origin.