TEHRAN - Violent protests over police discrimination in France enters its fifth consecutive night.

France endured a fifth night of violence with hundreds of arrests made following a day when mourners attended the funeral of a teenage boy whose killing by police sparked nationwide unrest and President Macron blamed social media for fueling unrest. 

Violent night protests have hit a number of cities across France after Nahel Merzouk, a teenager of North African descent, was shot dead at point-blank range during a traffic stop captured on video.

Despite massive deployment of police forces, armored vehicles, air surveillance, curfews, and bans on demonstrations to end the unrest, more than 700 people were arrested on Sunday night, in what the Interior Ministry said was a provisional count. 
On top of the 45,000 officers dispatched to major cities, Special Forces have also spread out nationwide to quell the violence.

On Saturday, the Interior Ministry revealed that French police had arrested more than 1,300 people on the fourth night of unrest. That’s in addition to at least 875 protesters detained on the third night. About 3,000 people have been arrested since Tuesday, according to government figures. 

Protesters again clashed with security forces, throwing stones and fireworks and once again setting fire to trash bins.

The flashpoint cities of Marseille and Lyon saw police fighting youths around city centers late into the night.

Footage has also emerged of mass rallies of a peaceful nature with protesters from all walks of society.

The French capital and its suburbs, where some 7,000 officers were out in force, 126 people had been arrested by 1.30 am.

Scores of police vans have also been positioned at the entrance to the town of Nanterre, on the outskirts of Paris, where the unrest began on Tuesday and quickly spread across the country. 

Nahel’s murder has revived long-standing grievances and complaints about racist behavior by police against ethnic-minority communities in France's low-income suburbs.

After chairing a second emergency meeting with senior officials to discuss the crisis gripping the nation, President Emmanuel Macron criticized social media platforms for provoking what he branded as “copycat violence”. 

He also said that state agencies will call on social media platforms to remove the most “sensitive content” and cooperate with the government to identify wanted suspects.

Macron has also canceled a state visit to France's closest European ally, Germany, in another sign of the major crisis he faces. 

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin had earlier declared an "exceptional" mobilization of security forces, including paramilitary gendarmes", to avoid more violent protests. 

Extra forces were dispatched to the cities of Lyon, Grenoble and Marseille, which have witnessed war-like scenes. But all the security measures have fallen short of bringing back calm.  

Nahel was laid to rest in a private ceremony at a local mosque in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where he had been shot dead by a police officer. 

A passenger who was with Nahel on the day of his murder has spoken out to "establish the truth... because there are a lot of lies".

The eyewitness posted a video on social media detailing how an officer put a gun to Nahel's head and said, "Don't move or I'll put a bullet in your head." A second officer is said to have told his colleague “Shoot him". 

According to the passenger, both officers struck Nahel with the butts of their weapons, causing him to release his foot from the brake pedal, which led the car to move forward.
He says the second officer then fired his weapon at Nahel, which led him to panic and put his foot on the accelerator. 
"I saw him in pain, he trembled," he says. "We hit a barrier. I was afraid. I got out of the vehicle. And I ran away. I thought they might shoot me. So I ran."
A prosecutor says the officer's use of a weapon was not legally justified.
While the Interior Minister has said that the level of violence has been "unacceptable", the government has declared that all options are on the table, but it has not yet reached the point of declaring a state of emergency.

Asked on French media whether the government could declare a state of emergency, Darmanin said, "Quite simply, we're not ruling out any hypothesis and we'll see after tonight what the President of the Republic chooses."

President Macron has been wary of calling a state of emergency, trying his best to balance the highly sensitive situation in a country where there have already been mass protests and strikes over his controversial pension measures as well as inflation hurting millions of homes.

According to Darmanin, France witnessed a quieter night than before, which he attributed to "the resolute action of the security forces".  

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has announced the cancellation of large-scale events across the country.

The unrest has raised concerns abroad, with France hosting a major sports tournament in the autumn and then the Paris Olympic Games in summer 2024.

Recently, France has faced months of anger and, at times, violent demonstrations after Macron pushed through a pension overhaul.

European countries have updated or revised their travel advice, warning tourists to stay away from areas affected by the violence.

The French tourism industry has also expressed concern over the unrest, with hotels and restaurants facing cancellations.

"Our hotel members have suffered a wave of cancellations of reservations in all the territories affected by the damage and clashes," the main association for hotel and catering industry employers said. 

The latest unrest has revived longstanding grievances about policing and racial profiling in France's low-income and multi-ethnic suburbs.

On Friday, the UN Human Rights office said the killing of a teen from North African descent was "a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement."

A foreign ministry statement dismissed the allegation as "totally unfounded".

Events on the ground, over the decades, show there has been widespread police violence and discrimination against minority groups, with critics accusing French police of using indiscriminate force.

“We have to go beyond saying that things need to calm down,” said Dominique Sopo, the head of the campaign group SOS Racisme. “The issue here is how we ensure we have a police force that, when they see blacks and Arabs, don’t tend to shout at them, use racist terms against them and in some cases shoot them in the head.”

Beyond the institutional racism common in many Western police forces, French policing has a more frequent tendency to resort to violence against minority groups, something that has been repeatedly highlighted by international rights human groups. Police truncheons, teargas grenades, rubber bullets, and larger “flash balls” have inflicted extensive physical injuries during demonstrations and left protesters paralyzed for life.

Darmanin has admitted that the images of his killing on social media were “extremely shocking”.

But France saw a record 13 incidents of police killing ethnic minorities in France last year, so this is nothing new.  

Racial profiling has been a long-time taboo in France. In November 2005, then French President Jacques Chirac, unable to quell nearly two weeks of civil unrest after two teenagers of African origin were electrocuted while hiding from police, invoked a state of emergency for three months for the first time in 50 years. 
Experts say France should have addressed the root cause of the issue then. 
Nearly two decades later, the same police racism and violence against minority groups has yet to be addressed.