France's mayors have called on members of the public and elected officials to gather at town halls across the country in a show of mass opposition to violent protests that have dragged on for nearly a week.
The government has been battling nightly riots and looting ever since 17-year-old Nahel M. was shot dead by a police officer during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday, reviving longstanding accusations of racism within the French police force.
The extraordinary call for a "mobilisation of citizens for a return to republican order" came after the home of the mayor of a Paris suburb was rammed with a flaming car in an apparent bid to burn it down, prompting widespread outrage.
Seeking to quell what has become one of the biggest challenges to President Emmanuel Macron since he took office in 2017, the interior ministry said it was again deploying 45,000 police and gendarmes nationwide overnight from Sunday to Monday, the same figure as the previous two nights.
Fresh crisis
Some 7,000 police were deployed in Paris and its suburbs alone, including along the Champs Elysees avenue in the capital, a tourist hotspot, following calls on social media to take the rioting to the heart of the city.
Paris police chief Laurent Nunez cautioned on BFM television that despite the calmer evening "no one is declaring victory".
The protests present a fresh crisis for Macron, who had been hoping to press on with the pledges of his second term after seeing off months of demonstrations that erupted in January over raising the retirement age.
The latest unrest has raised concerns abroad, with France hosting the Rugby World Cup in the autumn and the Paris Olympic Games in the summer of 2024.
Macron postponed a state visit to Germany that had been scheduled to begin on Sunday in an indication of the gravity of the situation at home.
French fireman dies putting out riot fire
A French fireman has died while seeking to douse several cars set ablaze north of Paris during rioting over the killing of a teenager by a police officer, the interior minister said Monday.
The 24-year-old fireman died fighting the fire in an underground car park in the suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis north of the capital, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.
The ministry said police arrested 157 people nationwide in the overnight rioting, a fraction of the numbers taken in on previous days in a generally quieter night.
