A burning car has been used to attack the home of a mayor during a fifth night of rioting by protesters sparked by the police killing of a teenager in France.
Vincent Jeanbrun, who runs the Paris suburb of L’Hay-les-Roses, claimed the incident was an “assassination attempt” and authorities said they were treating it as attempted murder.
Mr Jeanbrun, who was not at home at the time, said his property was “ram-raided” and set alight while his wife and two children, aged five and seven, were asleep. She and one of the youngsters were injured as they fled the building through the back garden.
The mayor, who had been at the town hall, claimed the perpetrators started a fire “to torch my house”.
Prosecutors said the vehicle was stopped apparently by a low wall before reaching the veranda of the house.
The town hall was targeted over several nights since the shooting of a 17-year-old boy and has been protected with barbed wire and barricades. But such a personal attack on a mayor’s home is unusual.
In a statement, Mr Jeanbrun wrote: “A milestone was reached in horror and ignominy. My home was attacked and my family was the victim of an assassination attempt. My determination to protect and serve the Republic is greater than ever. I will not back down.”
French prime minister Elisabeth Borne has “condemned” the attack and gave her full support to the mayor and his family.
A spokesperson for the PM said “the culprits will be prosecuted with the greatest firmness” and the government is “at the side of all the mayors”, adding: “These attacks and violence against elected officials are unacceptable.”
No suspects have been arrested over the incident.
Meanwhile, officers in Marseille fired tear gas at protesters as the escalating crisis in France continued.
Sky News footage showed crowds dispersing in the moments after the substance was deployed by officers.
Police in Paris cleared protesters from the Place de la Concorde and increased security at the city’s landmark Champs Elysees avenue after a call on social media to gather there.
Officers later said they arrested 37 people in the French capital after officers confiscated weapons in the area.
Some 2,400 people have been arrested after five nights of violent protests throughout the country following the death of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, who was shot by police during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday.
People have taken to the streets over consecutive nights to protest, setting cars alight, throwing stones and fireworks, and ransacking shops.
A funeral for the teenager was held in Nanterre on Saturday afternoon, with family and friends viewing an open coffin before it was taken to a mosque for a ceremony and later burial.
Early on Saturday firefighters in Nanterre, on the outskirts of Paris, extinguished blazes set by protesters that left the scorched remains of cars strewn across the streets, while in the neighbouring suburb of Colombes protesters overturned bins to use them as makeshift barricades.
On Friday evening looters broke into a gun shop and stole weapons in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, police said.
Despite Mr Macron’s appeal to parents to keep their children at home, street clashes between young protesters and police raged on, with authorities saying around 2,500 fires have been set and stores were ransacked.
As the number of arrests increased the government suggested the violence was beginning to subside due to tougher security measures.
However, the damage has been widespread from Paris to Marseille and Lyon, and even further away in the French overseas territories, where a 54-year-old died after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana.
LOCALS BLAME GOVERNMENT FOR BEING TOO SOFT ON CRIMINALS
Few expected violence to shatter the tranquility of L’Hay-les-Roses.
The street itself is now cordoned off by the police. The vehicle used to attack the house, as well as a burnt-out family car, have already been removed. But what lingers is a sense of shock.
We spoke to Gerard and Josie, who have lived in the area for 45 years and said nothing like this had ever happened before.
Josie, articulate and anxious, blamed the government for being too soft on criminals and, like many in France, wondered aloud why so many “10,12 or 13-year-old children” are roaming the streets at night.
“The death of Nahel is not the issue behind attacks like this,” she told us. “It is the excuse.”
Nils came past with his young son in a pram. He’s lived near the mayor’s house for two years, liked the area and said he’d always felt safe here but this morning he was checking the locks and worrying.
He said he was worried and scared. “I have a family at home, just like the mayor,” he said.
Around the town hall, there are now barricades and razor wire, but the shock of this attack runs beyond this small town.
Mob violence is indiscriminate and wanton, which is what makes it so ferociously intimidating, but what happened to the Jeanbrun family was something different – targeted, planned and premeditated.
If that is a sign of things to come, France has another headache to deal with.
Source: 
news.sky.com
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