Despite the deployment of some 45,000 police and gendarmerie special forces in armored vehicles, riots broke out for a fourth straight night in several French cities after a 17-year-old boy was shot dead by a police officer during a traffic control in a Paris suburb.

Buildings and cars were set on fire, shops were looted, while the police made 471 arrests.

In Marseille, hooded men broke into a gun store and stole hunting rifles but no ammunition, authorities said. A man was arrested with a rifle he may have grabbed from a certain store, according to police.

The moment of a powerful explosion in the area of ​​the old port of Marseille was captured in an amateur video shared on social media platforms. There were no reports of injuries in the area.

The mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, appealed to the government to strengthen the security forces. “Scenes of looting and violence are unacceptable,” he wrote on Twitter.

In Lyon, Strasbourg and Grenoble, looting of shops and clashes between youths and police were reported.

“Violence is not a solution”, is the message shared by the popular French footballer Kylian Mbappe, on behalf of his teammates in the national team. Acknowledging the outrage over the death of 17-year-old Nael, he appealed for restraint. “The time of violence must end and give way to mourning, dialogue and reconstruction,” the relevant statement underlines.

The escalation of violence has left French President Emmanuel Macron facing his worst crisis since the era of the Yellow Vest protests.

Asked if the French government intends to declare a state of emergency, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanen told TF1 news yesterday: “We are not ruling anything out, we will see what the president of the Republic chooses.”