Bahrain backs French security measures

TDT | Manama                                                

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com     

Bahrain yesterday voiced full support to France in all the measures it takes to uphold security, peace, and public order.

In an official statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for a reduction in escalation, the maintenance of calm, and the respect for the laws of the country.

The Foreign Ministry also expressed confidence in France's capability to overcome these events and acknowledged the French government's commitment to ensuring justice for all in accordance with established laws.

Yesterday, the French police announced arresting 994 people nationwide during a fourth consecutive night of rioting over the killing of a teenager by police.

France had deployed 45,000 officers overnight backed by light armoured vehicles and crack police units to quell the violence over the death of 17-year-old Nahel, killed during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb on Tuesday.

French authorities yesterday prepared for a fifth consecutive night of rioting by sending reinforcements to flashpoint cities. as the 17-yearold whose killing by a policeman sparked the violent protests was laid to rest.

Police arrested 1,311 people overnight Friday yesterday, the highest figure since the violent protests began over the pointblank killing by a policeman of Nahel M. in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday.

Shops were ransacked and town halls attacked in various locations nationwide by gangs, often made up of teens organ-ised on social media and armed with fireworks.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters that 45,000 members of the security forces would be deployed over-night yesterday to Sunday -- the same number as the night before -- but with additional forces and equipment sent to Lyon, Grenoble and Marseille which saw the worst rioting the previous night.

Numbers would be “considerably reinforced” in these cities “in order to completely restore republican order”, Dar-manin said.

The protests over the death of the teen, who was of Algerian origin, have again exposed the severe racial tensions in modern France and increased scrutiny on the police who have long been accused of singling out minorities.

The crisis is a hugely unwelcome development for President Emmanuel Macron, who was looking forward to pressing on with his second mandate after seeing off protests that erupted in January over raising the pensions age.

In a sign of the seriousness of the crisis, he postponed a state visit to Germany scheduled to begin Sunday.

The German presidency announced that Macron spoke by telephone with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier “and informed him of the situation in his country”.

‘Dialogue and reconstruction’ Nahel’s funeral ceremony began in the Paris suburb of Nanterre where he lived, with a large crowd gathering in a tense atmosphere with the youths present not wanting their faces photographed by media, an AFP reporter said.

A ceremony took place in the early afternoon at the mosque in Nanterre with the interment taking place in the giant Mont Valerien cemetery in the area.

It finished at 1530 GMT and was marked by “reflection and without incidents”, a witness told AFP.

In a rare intervention on a social issue, the French national football team, many of whose top players are of minority background, joined calls for an end to the clashes.

“The time of violence must give way to that of mourning, dialogue and reconstruction,” the team said in a statement posted on social media by captain and Paris Saint-Germain superstar Kylian Mbappe.

In a bid to limit the violence, buses and trams in France have stopped running after 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) and the sale of large fireworks and inflammable liquids has been banned.

The southern port city of Marseille has been the scene of clashes and looting from the centre and further north in the long-neglected low-income neighbourhoods that Macron visited at the start of the week.

Authorities in Marseille are going a step further by halting all urban transport from 6:00 pm, including metros, and banning all protests up until Sunday.