France Riots: Macron Tells Parents To Keep Kids Off Streets

French president Emmanuel Macron called on parents to keep child rioters off the streets saying that around a third of the 875 people arrested overnight for rioting were “young, or very young”. “It’s the responsibility of parents to keep them at home. It’s not the state’s job to act in their place,” he said after chairing a crisis security meeting as the government seeks to contain nationwide unrest in the wake of the killing of a teen by police.

Urging social media firms to remove the “most sensitive” content related to the rioting, the French president said that the platforms were fueling copycat violence.

Additional security forces would be deployed, he said, denouncing the “unacceptable exploitation of a death of an adolescent”.

In the violent protests, a total of 492 buildings have been damaged, 2,000 vehicles burned and 3,880 fires started, according to figures given by the president at the start of a crisis meeting.

The protests come following the death of a 17-year-old at a police traffic stop. The killing was caught on video igniting anger over incidents of police violence and allegations of systemic racism within law enforcement.

Earlier, the government vowed to examine “all options” to restore order after the third night of protests during which more than two hundred police were injured, authorities said.

Emmanuel Macron has so far ruled out declaring a state of emergency. France’s prime minister called the violence “intolerable and inexcusable”, saying, “The priority is to ensure national unity and the way to do it is to restore order.”