PARIS: More than 1,300 people were arrested in France during a fourth night of rioting before the funeral on Saturday of Nahel M, whose shooting by police sparked the unrest, in the Paris suburb where the teenager died.
The government deployed 45,000 police and several armoured vehicles overnight to tackle the worst crisis of President Emmanuel Macron's leadership since the "Yellow Vest" protests which brought much of France to a standstill in late 2018.
Macron postponed a state visit to Germany that was due to begin on Sunday due to the unrest, both countries said.
The interior ministry said that 1,311 people had been arrested overnight, compared with 875 the previous night, although the violence was "lower in intensity".
Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where buses were halted and the area quiet on a damp Saturday morning after more overnight rioting.
Several hundred people lined up to enter Nanterre's grand mosque, which was guarded by volunteers in yellow vests, while a few dozen bystanders watched from across the street.
Salsabil, a young woman of Arab descent, said that she had come to express support for Nahel's family.
"I think it's important we all stand together," she said.
Marie, 60, said she had lived in Nanterre for 50 years and there had always been problems with the police.
"This absolutely needs to stop. The government is completely disconnected from our reality," she said.
The shooting of the teenager, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism. Macron had denied there is systemic racism in French law enforcement agencies.
"If you have the wrong skin colour, the police are much more dangerous to you," said a young man, who declined to be named, adding that he was a friend of Nahel's.
Looters have ransacked dozens of shops and torched 2,000 vehicles since the start of the riots, which have spread to cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille.
More than 200 police officers have been injured, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, adding that the average age of those arrested was 17.
Mayor Benoit Payan called on the government to send extra troops to tackle "pillaging and violence" in Marseille, where three police officers were slightly wounded on Saturday. — Reuters
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