International
France’s President, Macron returns to France as Protesters destroy 12 buses
France’s president rushed home from an EU summit Friday for a crisis meeting, after a third night of protests over a policeman’s killing of a teen saw cars torched, shops ransacked and hundreds arrested.
Police sources said that rather than pitched battles between protesters and police, the night was marked by pillaging of shops, reportedly including flagship branches of Nike and Zara in Paris.
Public buildings were also targeted, with a police station in the Pyrenees city of Pau hit with a Molotov cocktail, according to regional authorities, and an elementary school and a district office set on fire in northern town Lille.
The unrest has come in response to the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Nahel, whose death has revived longstanding grievances about policing and racial profiling in France’s low-income and multi-ethnic suburbs.
AFP journalists saw President Emmanuel Macron leaving the European Council summit in Brussels to chair a crisis meeting on the violence — the second such emergency talks in as many days.
Ahead of the meeting, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the government was considering “all options” to restore order, including declaring a state of emergency.
Around 40,000 police and gendarmes — along with elite Raid and GIGN units — were deployed in several cities overnight, with curfews issued in municipalities around Paris and bans on public gatherings in Lille and Tourcoing in the country’s north.
Despite the massive security deployment, violence and damage were reported in multiple areas.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 667 people had been arrested in what he described as a night of violence, while 249 police officers were injured, none of them seriously.
Rioting apparently linked to the Paris police shooting had even followed Macron to the Belgian capital, with Brussels police reporting 63 people detained late Thursday for setting fires and erecting barricades.
– ‘Severely disrupted’ –
France has been rocked by successive nights of protests since Nahel was shot point-blank on Tuesday during a traffic stop captured on video.
In her first media interview since the shooting, Nahel’s mother, Mounia, told the France 5 channel: “I don’t blame the police, I blame one person: the one who took the life of my son.”
She said the 38-year-old officer responsible, who was detained and charged with voluntary manslaughter on Thursday, “saw an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life”.
The memorial march for Nahel, led by Mounia, ended with riot police firing tear gas as several cars were set alight in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre, where the teenager lived and was killed.
Heightened security appeared to do little to deter unrest Thursday night.
In the city centre of Marseille, a library was vandalised, according to local officials, and scuffles broke out nearby when police used tear gas to disperse a group of 100 to 150 people who allegedly tried to set up barricades.
In Nanterre, the epicentre of the unrest, tensions rose around midnight, with fireworks and explosives set off in the Pablo Picasso district, where Nahel had lived, according to an AFP journalist.
The Paris region’s bus and tram lines remained “severely disrupted” on Friday, the RATP transport authority said, after a dozen vehicles were torched overnight in a depot and some routes were blocked or damaged.
The government is desperate to avoid a repeat of 2005 urban riots, sparked by the death of two boys of African origin in a police chase, during which 6,000 people were arrested.
Macron has called for calm and said the protest violence was “unjustifiable”.
The riots are a fresh challenge for the president, who had been looking to move past some of the biggest demonstrations in a generation sparked by a controversial rise in the retirement age.
– ‘Bullet in the head’ –
There have long been concerns over allegations of systemic racism in the French police and the UN rights office said Friday the killing of the teen of North African descent was “a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement.”
Nahel was killed as he pulled away from police who were trying to stop him for a traffic infraction.
A video, authenticated by AFP, showed two police officers standing by the side of the stationary car, with one pointing a weapon at the driver.
A voice is heard saying: “You are going to get a bullet in the head.”
The police officer then appears to fire as the car abruptly drives off.
The officer’s lawyer, Laurent-Franck Lienard, told BFMTV late Thursday that his client had apologised as he was taken into custody.
“The first words he pronounced were to say sorry, and the last words he said were to say sorry to the family,” Lienard said.
AFP
The United States President, Donald Trump, has announced that the US has carried out a “very successful attack” on three major nuclear sites in Iran: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
Trump said, “All planes are now outside of Iran’s airspace.”
Trump made this known via his social media platform, Truth Social.
According to the US President, “We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.
All planes are now outside of Iran’s airspace. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors.
There is no other military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
This is the first time the United States Army will use the bunker bombs in its military history.
A bunker buster is a type of munition that is designed to penetrate hardened targets or targets buried deep underground, such as Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, buried deep inside the mountains, believed to be around 300 feet deep.
As of the time of filing this report, Iran has yet to react to the US military action, but the State media told journalists that the three sites bombed by the US have all been evacuated some time ago before the strike.
This attack is coming as a surprise to many who believed that diplomacy, rather than military action, should be engaged after US President Trump gave a two-week window for negotiation with Iran.
It was earlier reported that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khemenei, vowed to retaliate if the United States strikes nuclear targets in Iran, threatening to attack US military bases in the Middle East if Trump entered the conflict with Israel.
Ayatollah had earlier yesterday named three successors after several assassination threats from Israel and the United States.
Nigeria has taken delivery from the Netherlands of 119 pieces of priceless “Benin Bronze” artefacts looted more than 120 years ago, the country’s museum commission and the Dutch embassy said June 18.
It is the latest return of artefacts to Africa, as pressure mounts on Western governments and institutions to hand back the spoils of colonial oppression.
“On this historic occasion it gives us great joy to finally welcome the return of 119 Benin Bronzes from the Netherlands,” said Mr Olugbile Holloway, director-general of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
“This represents the largest physical return to Nigeria and the people of Benin since the looting of the Benin Royal Palace by the British in 1897,” he said in a statement jointly issued with the Dutch embassy in Nigeria.
“The symbolism of this occasion cannot be overemphasised and what it means for the pride and dignity of not just the Benin people, but the whole of Nigeria,” added Mr Holloway.
The story of the Benin Bronzes is one of violence and tragedy. It began when nine British officers were killed on a trade mission to the then-independent kingdom of Benin, in the south of present-day Nigeria.
The British reaction was fierce. London deployed a military expedition to avenge its officers.
The troops killed several thousand locals and torched Benin’s capital city. They looted the royal palace, stealing hundreds of artworks, including the Benin Bronzes.
Most of the ornate bronzes were then sold to finance the expedition, auctioned off or sold to museums across Europe and the United States.
This was in 1897, and 128 years later, Nigeria is still negotiating the return of the bronzes around the world – with mixed results.
Dutch Ambassador for International Cultural Cooperation Dewi van de Weerd hailed Nigeria for persistently campaigning for the return of the cultural artefacts.
“We hope that this restitution is not the final chapter, but the foundation for further cooperation between Dutch and Nigerian museums,” said Ms van de Weerd in the joint statement.
Of the 119 objects, 113 were part of the Dutch State Collection, while the Rotterdam municipality returned the other six. The pieces will be officially handed over on June 21.
The Israeli missiles has reportedly struck Iran’s state television headquarters on Monday while a live news broadcast was underway.
The development sent shockwaves through the studio and caused the immediate stoppage of the broadcast.
A viral video circulating on social media and reposted by Daily Iran Military shows the moment chaos erupted during a live transmission.
A visibly shaken female anchor was delivering the news when a thunderous explosion rattled the studio.Thick smoke and falling debris forced her to flee her desk mid-broadcast.
It was earlier reported that at least eight people were killed on Saturday night when Iranian aerial strikes on Israel.
The deceased included four children, with more than 200 others injured, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
The barrage came in retaliation for Israel’s surprise strike early Friday on Iran’s nuclear programme.
According to Israeli officials, that operation killed several nuclear scientists and high-ranking military leaders.
Meanwhile, a fresh report by SBM Intelligence has warned that the conflict between Israel and Iran could lead to an increase in fuel prices in Nigeria.
The report attributed this to the fact that Nigeria still relies heavily on importing fuel to meet local demand.
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