The de-escalation is confirmed in France. At the end of a night from Monday to Tuesday marked by a sharp decrease in violence, Emmanuel Macron must begin to take stock of a week of riots by receiving Tuesday, July 4, the mayors of some 220 municipalities "victims of abuses" throughout the country.

With this consultation of local elected officials at the end of the morning, the President of the Republic "wishes to begin a meticulous and longer-term work to understand in depth the reasons that led to these events," said the Elysee.

The Ministry of the Interior noted in the morning a new sharp decrease in violence during the night, with 72 people arrested, against up to several hundred at the height of the violence.

"Punish financially"

The ministry also recorded 159 vehicle fires and 202 fires on public roads during this seventh consecutive night of riots sparked by the death of 17-year-old Nahel, killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in Nanterre.

Monday was marked by many rallies across the France in support of the mayor of L'Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne) Vincent Jeanbrun, the day after the car-ramming attack on his home.

For his first trip since the beginning of the crisis, Emmanuel Macron went in the middle of the evening with his Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin to the Bessières barracks, in the seventeenth arrondissement of the capital, which hosts the staff of the BAC (Anti-Crime Brigade) at night and departmental intervention companies. In the aftermath, he went to the Paris police headquarters, according to the Elysee.

The head of state requested the maintenance of a "massive presence" on the ground "to reinforce the return to calm and order," his entourage told AFP.

"It would be necessary that at the first offense, we manage to punish financially and easily the families," also said the head of state during an exchange with six police officers of the BAC in a brewery north of Paris, reported Le Parisien.

"I didn't think"

Overnight riots erupted as early as June 27, hours after the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old boy shot at close range by a police motorcyclist during a traffic stop.

The scene was captured by an amateur video, which contradicted the initial version of the police arguing that the vehicle driven by the young man had rammed into them.

Its viral spread has fueled the anger of groups of young people in his home neighborhood in Nanterre and elsewhere in France, where clashes with the police, destruction of public buildings and looting of shops have multiplied.

According to figures sent to AFP on Tuesday by the Ministry of the Interior, 3,486 people were arrested, 12,202 vehicles burned, 1,105 buildings burned or damaged and 209 premises of the national police, gendarmerie or municipal police attacked since the night of June 27 to 28.

A total of 374 people have been tried in immediate court since Friday, according to the Justice Department.

In Strasbourg, prison sentences ranging from four to ten months were handed down during these hearings. "It was an opportunistic robbery: it was broken, I didn't think, I went in," Rayane, 26, told the court, leaving a Zara store "with a big bundle of clothes under his arm".

One billion euros in damage according to Medef

The main French employers' organisations are calling on the government to put in place support measures for affected traders and entrepreneurs, including a "relief fund" for "those who have lost everything".

The damage is estimated by the president of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, at one billion euros. "Not to mention the damage to tourism. The videos of the riots, which have circulated in the world, degrade the image of the France," said the boss of the bosses to the Parisian.

In Île-de-France, the riots caused "at least 20 million euros of damage" for public transport, from burned buses to broken street furniture, according to a first estimate by Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM).

On the side of the investigation, the third occupant of the car driven by Nahel was heard Monday by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), AFP learned from a source close to the case. Wanted since the facts, this man presented himself before the "police of the police".

The police officer who fired the shot that killed Nahel has been charged with intentional homicide and imprisonment.

A pot of support for the agent exceeded Monday on the internet the million euros, raising the indignation of elected representatives of the left.

With AFP

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