FILE PHOTO: A protester builds a barricade during clashes in Villeneuve-La-Garenne, France April 20, 2020, in this still image obtained from a social media video. TWITTER/@ECHOBANLIEUES/via REUTERS
April 22, 2020
PARIS (Reuters) – Youths clashed with police in suburbs around Paris early on Wednesday, the fourth consecutive night of trouble as strict lockdown rules to tackle the coronavirus have heightened social tensions.
In Villeneuve-La-Garenne north of the capital, riot police ran into a housing estate complex to quell unrest after rubbish and debris had been set on fire.
Police used shields to protect themselves from broken glass hurled at them while other residents looked on from their windows as the police shone torchlights onto the high-rise blocks.
In Nanterre, further to the west, the streets were littered with the charred remains of cars that had been set on fire, and broken glass from a vandalised bus-stop.
Unrest was also reported in the Clichy district just north of the Paris city boundary.
Officials at the Paris police department could not be immediately reached for comment.
Trouble first broke out in Villeneuve-La-Garenne last weekend, after a motorcyclist was injured in a collision with an unmarked police car during a check.
Police, who have launched an enquiry into the incident, said they had wanted to question the rider who had been seen speeding the wrong way down a street without a helmet.
France’s ‘banlieues’ – high-rise housing estates on the outskirts of major cities – have long been flashpoints of anger over social and economic grievances. In 2005, unrest lasted three weeks after two youths died fleeing police in a northern Paris suburb.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Jon Boyle)
