Mourners bury slain teen in France; 45,000 police deployed to quell riots

Associated Press

Nanterre (France): Hushed and visibly anguished, hundreds of mourners from France's Islamic community formed a solemn procession from a mosque to a hillside cemetery on Saturday to bury a 17-year-old whose killing by police has triggered days of rioting and looting across the nation.

Underscoring the gravity of the crisis, President Emmanuel Macron scrapped an official trip to Germany after nights of unrest across France. Officials said they were again deploying 45,000 police to the streets nationwide in an effort to head off a fifth night of violence. Some 2,400 people have been arrested overall since the teen's death on Tuesday.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted late Saturday that 200 riot police would be mobilized in the port city of Marseille, where TV showed footage of tear gas and officers in the streets as night fell Police said 29 people were arrested there, and at least 37 were arrested in Paris near the Champs-Elysées, where police vans were seen parked outside luxury stores in one of the capital's most high-profile areas.

Near the Arc de Triomphe on Saturday night, hundreds of police with batons and shields stood restlessly along the Champs-Elysées, several in front of the shuttered Cartier boutique. Posts on social media called for protests on the grand boulevard but the police presence appeared to discourageany large  gatherings.

At a hilltop cemetery in Nanterre, the Paris suburb where the teen identified only as Nahel was killed, hundreds stood along the road to pay tribute as mourners carried his white casket from a mosque to the burial site, where journalists were barred and in some cases even chased away. Some of the men carried folded prayer rugs.