An uprising broke out in response to the police murder of a 17-year-old youth in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
The teenager was driving in a rental car in the western Paris suburb early on Tuesday when police pulled him over and shot him in cold blood.
A video circulating on social media show a police officer pointing his weapon at the driver through the window and firing at close range. The car moved a few dozen metres before crashing.
Emergency services tried to resuscitate the teenager at the scene but he died shortly afterwards.
Local residents held a protest outside police headquarters. Tensions soared later on Tuesday between police and demonstrators who lit fires, set a car alight, destroyed bus stops and threw firecrackers towards police who responded with tear gas and dispersion grenades.
Nine people were arrested in the confrontations.
Militant youths clashed with police late into the evening, including in protests in the heart of Paris – located about 11km (almost 7 miles) from the suburb.
The officer accused of shooting on the teen has been arrested on homicide charges.
A team of three lawyers for the driver identified the 17-year-old victim as Nael M.
In a statement, the lawyers rejected a reported statement by the police that officers’ lives were in danger because the driver had threatened to run them over.
Yassine Bouzrou, a lawyer for the family, said the images “clearly showed a policeman killing a young man in cold blood”.
“This is a long way from any kind of legitimate defence,” he said, adding the family had filed a complaint accusing the police of “lying” by initially claiming the car had tried to run down the officers.
After a record 13 deaths from police shootings in France during traffic stops last year, this is the second fatal shooting in such circumstances in 2023. Three people were killed by police shooting during a traffic stop in 2021 and two in 2020.
A Reuters news agency tally of fatal shootings in 2021 and 2022 shows the majority of victims of police shootings were Black or of Arabic origin.
“As a mother from Nanterre, I have a feeling of insecurity for our children,” said Mornia Labssi, a local resident and anti-racism campaigner, who said she had spoken to the victim’s family, which she said was of Algerian origin.