Several cities in France were surveying the fallout on Sunday after protesters clashed with riot police and hundreds were arrested during another night of violent demonstrations, the fifth in a row, that have flared across the country in response to the killing of a 17-year-old by a police officer.
Saturday evening was calmer than recent ones, but still, local news media reported rioting, looting and clashes in Marseille, France’s second-largest city. And in L’Haÿ-les-Roses, a town south of Paris, Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun said in a statement that a car had rammed into his house and then been set on fire, leaving his wife and one of his children injured.
“Last night, a milestone was reached in terms of horror and ignominy,” Mr. Jeanbrun wrote.
While the number of police officers deployed across the country had not increased, more were sent to quell protesters in Grenoble, Lyon and Marseille, according to the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin.
Tensions remained high after the funeral on Saturday for the 17-year-old, named publicly only as Nahel M., of Algerian and Moroccan descent, who was fatally shot on Tuesday during a traffic stop in Nanterre, a Paris suburb. Many protesters said that they saw themselves in the victim, connecting his fate with their own experiences of neglect and racial discrimination in France’s poorer urban suburbs.
In a statement on Twitter early Sunday, the Interior Ministry said that 719 people were arrested overnight and that 45 police officers had been injured. On Friday night, more than 1,300 were arrested. In total, more than 300 police officers have been wounded during the unrest.
In a Twitter post, Mr. Darmanin added that 45,000 police officers had been deployed across the country on Saturday evening, a number similar to the night before.
“A calmer night,” he wrote on Twitter, “thanks to the resolute action of the police.”
Maud Bodoukian contributed reporting.
