(VOVWORLD) - France on Friday held an emergency meeting in Paris to find solutions to the prolonged riots across the country following the shooting of a 17-year-old teenager earlier this week.
 Cars are burned during a protest in Paris, France, on June 29, 2023. (Photo: AFP/VNA) |
President Emmanuel Macron left the EU summit in Brussels on Friday to return to France to chair the meeting. After three days of riots, 500 buildings were damaged, 2,000 vehicles were burned, and 3,800 fires were reported nationwide. Police arrested 870 people on Thursday night, a third of whom are aged 14 or 15.
The French President blamed social media and video games for the unrest currently sweeping his country. It sometimes feels like some of them are re-living in the streets the video games that have intoxicated them, Macron said.
Macron called on social media platforms to remove particularly sensitive content related to the riots, adding that more police will be deployed to control the situation.
Bus and tram services in Paris stop at 9:00pm each evening until further notice. On Friday, the authorities in Marseille issued a decision banning people from holding demonstrations in public. All public transport in Marseille stopped working from 7pm Friday.