Thousands of people demonstrated in several French cities on Saturday to protest against police brutality and racism – three months after the shooting death of a 17-year-old by a police officer and the unprecedented wave of riots that followed.

On the sidelines of a protest in Paris, protesters attacked a police vehicle with crowbars, the BFMTV network reported, citing one injury.

Protesters denounced systemic racism, police brutality and growing social inequalities that particularly affect residents of deprived suburbs.

The murder of 17-year-old Nael in Nanterre (suburb of Paris) by a policeman who stopped him for a check, had caused widespread riots. Looting and arson shook the suburbs of the French capital for many days. The glass of popular anger overflowed following the release of a video showing that the young man did not threaten the physical integrity of police officers, as they had initially claimed.

French police restored order by implementing draconian security measures. Since then, the government of President Emmanuel Macron has presented no plans to improve the situation in the run-down suburbs of Paris, whose residents feel alienated and excluded, and no efforts have been made to curb police brutality.

According to a report by the Inspectorate General of the National Police (IGPN), 38 people were killed and 66 injured in police operations in 2022 – compared to 37 deaths and 79 injuries recorded in 2021.