Violent riots spark concerns about France’s ability to host world sporting events

Ongoing riots in France, following the death of a 17-year-old driver, have raised questions about the safety of future sporting events, including the Tour de France and the Olympics.

As France licks its bloody wounds following widespread riots, vandalism and looting sparked by a police officer shooting dead Nahel M, a teenager of North African descent, many have been left wondering whether this divided nation is up to hosting a series of upcoming international sporting events.

French riot police officers stand guard next to a burnt out trash bin during a demonstration against police in Marseille, southern France. Picture: AFP

In 14 days time, the Tour de France, the world’s biggest cycling championship, will conclude on the Champs Elysées in Paris – a favourite spot for rioters.

Saint-Denis – known as one of the least safe suburbs of Paris – houses the Stade de France, where Australia will play Georgia in the Rugby World Cup on September 9.

Most recently it was where hordes of angry, disaffected or opportunistic young men looted shops, torched cars and wrecked a bus station in an orgy of violence.

French police officers patrol in front of the Arc de Triomphe in the Champs Elysees area of Paris five days after a 17-year-old man was killed by police in Nanterre. Picture: AFP

Next year France hosts the biggest sporting event of them all, the Olympics.

But last week’s display of anarchy in cities across France – and accusations of systemic racism within the police – have raised concerns about its capacity to host such events.

It follows on from a series of earlier riots and protests over pension reforms.

The latest violent clashes prompted the United Nations to declare that France must “seriously address the deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement”.

Nahel, 17, a keen rugby player, raised single-handedly by his mother on the Pablo Picasso housing estate in Nanterre, was shot dead by a police officer at a traffic stop in Paris on June 27.

A burning car during protests in Nanterre, a day after the killing of a 17-year-old boy in Nanterre by a police officer's gunshot following a refusal to comply. Picture: AFP

A search of the car did not find any dangerous material or illegal drugs.

There have been 21 fatal police traffic-stop shootings since 2020. Most victims come from mixed race, black or Arab origin.

France’s human rights ombudsman has opened an inquiry into the killing – and the officer involved has been charged with homicide.

French honorary professor of social sciences Farhad Khosrokhavar said keeping the lid on civil unrest in France during President Emmanuel Macron’s remaining two and half years in office will depend heavily on the president reigning in the need to modernise a country fiercely resistant to change, particularly in the poorer city banlieues of Nanterre.

A French National police officer secures the entrance to a building as he stands next to the name 'Nahel', sprayed on a column during protests in Nantes. Picture: AFP

“France needs peace and is not ready for more turmoil and Macron came into politics inexperienced, sat in the centre and tried to please everyone – but he must put a stop to his attitude of wanting to modernise French society – the French, the trade unions, don’t like change and revolt,” said Professor Khosrokhavart of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris.

Unless Macron rethinks his attitude, Professor Khosrokhavart said it could give the far-right Marine Le Pen the edge to win in 2027 with her long-held hard line policies on crime and immigration.

The death of 17 year-old Nahel M. sparked major unrest across France. Picture: AFP

He said the “sheep mentality” of crowd rioting has mostly dissipated with the deployment of 45,000 police and arrest of more than 3000 rioters and President Macron is exerting his security might to ensure Paris no longer resembles a war zone before any impending sporting fixtures.

“The youths are mostly aged between 12 and 17 and when asked why they did it they said they just wanted a pair of jeans or trainers, or some beer – they’re young men who follow their contemporaries, they’re not organised, it’s that sheep mentality, they just want to indulge in rioting,” said Professor Khosrokhavart.

Protesters clash with CRS riot police in Marseille, southern France over the shooting of the teenage driver by French police. Picture: AFP

“The Rugby World Cup and the Olympics will pass peacefully – as long as the police don’t do anything foolish.”

President Macron called the killing of Nahel “inexcusable” and “inexplicable.” But Professor of sociology at Stony Brook University in New York, Crystal Fleming, disagrees.

“It is not inexplicable,” she said, adding, “It is not a mystery. It is racism.”

The author of Resurrecting Slavery: Racial Legacies and White Supremacy in France, insists unrest may have fizzled out for now but it will return to plague the country and the police become properly educated about centuries of colonial racism.

Demonstrators run as French police officers use tear gas in Paris. Picture: AFP

“The police killing of 17 year old Nahel reflects France’s long history of systemic racism which is rooted in centuries of colonial violence,” she said.

“It’s important to note that Nahel was a Frenchman of North African ancestry — a member of France’s largest minority group.

“Research shows that French Arabs and Blacks – especially boys and men – are most frequently profiled and killed by French police.

“These patterns of discrimination in policing reflect long standing biases that particularly disadvantage French people of African descent.”

French police arrested 1311 people nationwide during a fourth consecutive night of rioting over the killing of a teenager by police. Picture: AFP

President Macron will be hoping the protesters, and copycat vandals, stay home.

Talk to the protesters themselves and many say staying home on their housing estates is unsafe, because of regular clashes with police.

One French activist who asked not to be named said being a young black or Arab man on a housing estate in France means being frequently exposed to police brutality and racial profiling.

Pedestrians walk on Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris a day after protesters took to the iconic street and clashed with police. Picture: AFP

“Until France recognises the problem is endemic,” she said, “there will be a lot more Nahels.”

Meanwhile, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from The Telegraph UK, believes France has just been “unlucky” and that the “incendiary mix of the culture war ideology and agitation from Snapchat and Twitter could set off much the same paroxysm in any number of Western countries, including Britain”.

He said France boasts a formidable economy and has been outperforming many of its European neighbours in the last few years.

Unemployment rates are at a 40-year-low.

Taiwan is looking to build factories in Dunkirk and Elon Musk is even interested in making “significant investments in France” relating to Tesla.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne speaks to press after she received the representatives of the political parliamentary groups at the Hotel Matignon in Paris. Picture: AFP

Mr Evans-Pritchard said France is also “Western Europe’s farming superpower with an agro-industrial base that has been long nurtured”, as well as being a net exporter of electricity, thanks to its renewed faith in nuclear power.

He dismissed the young protesters pillaging and “launching fire bomb attacks on symbols of state authority for the exhilaration of it”, as an “anarchic threat to civil order that no country can tolerate”.

Undoubtedly, some of the rioters were only out for ‘fun’, or to grab themselves a new pair of jeans or trainers.

But others were drawn to the streets for very different reasons; to protest against racism, poverty, lack of jobs and social alienation.

They wanted to be seen and heard.

It’s that cohort, that may well choose to reappear during one of these high profile sporting events, just to make a point.

Originally published as Violent riots spark concerns about France’s ability to host world sporting events