Demonstrators have taken to the streets of cities around France every night since Tuesday when police shot and killed 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk after fleeing a traffic stop in a Paris suburb, resulting in more than 2,300 arrests over the last four nights, the BBC reports.
Some of the protests have turned violent with property damage reported in some areas. More than 45,000 police have been deployed in metropolitan areas around the country to quell the unrest, leading to some standoffs with demonstrators where police deployed tear gas.
The officer who shot Merzouk has been charged with voluntary homicide and has apologized to the family. However, demonstrators expressed their outrage over increasing incidents of police violence, as well as an unpopular 2017 law that allows wider use of firearms by police when drivers fail to stop when ordered.