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French President Emmanuel Macron, who returned to Paris from a European Union summit, was holding his second crisis meeting in two days.
Authorities have deployed 40,000 police to the streets and detained more than 875 people, with around 200 officers injured, officials said.
The government has stopped short of declaring a state of emergency — which it did in 2005 after the death of two boys fleeing police caused widespread rioting. Yet Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne suggested Friday the option was being considered.
Meanwhile, lawyers for the officer accused of pulling the trigger, who is kept anonymous by French law, said his client was sorry and “devastated.” Attorney Laurent-Franck Lienard told France’s BFM TV, “He doesn’t get up in the morning to kill people. He really didn’t want to kill.”
Footage filmed by bystanders showed two police officers leaning into the driver-side window of a yellow car, with one of them appearing to fire a shot as the vehicle pulls away. The car crashed into a post nearby and prosecutors said the driver died at the scene.
Prosecutor Pascal Prache said the officers tried to stop Nahel because he looked so young and was driving a Mercedes with Polish license plates in a bus lane. He allegedly ran a red light to avoid being stopped and then got stuck in traffic.
Prache said his initial investigation showed that “the conditions for the legal use of the weapon were not met.” The officer has been handed preliminary charges, which mean magistrates strongly suspect wrongdoing but need to investigate further before they can send the case to trial.
The case has led to renewed outrage from campaigners who allege institutionalized discrimination by law enforcement — and that the nation’s official commitment to colorblind universalism only serves to entrench widespread racism.
“How do we make it so that we have a police force that when they see Blacks and Arabs, don’t tend to shout at them, use racist terms against them and in some cases, shoot them in the head,” said Dominique Sopo, head of the campaign group SOS Racisme.
The United Nations human rights office said the killing was a moment for the country to address deep issues of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement,” spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement. She called on the country to ensure that “the use of force by police” was proportional, legal and non-discriminatory.
Matt Bradley and Laura Saravia reported from Paris, and Alexander Smith reported from London.
The Associated Press contributed.
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