A series of riots in France began on 27 June 2023 following the fatal shooting of Nahel Merzouk in an encounter with two police officers in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris.

[14][15] Fearing greater unrest, Gérald Darmanin, Interior Minister of France, deployed 1,200 riot police and gendarmes in and around Paris, later adding an additional 2,000.

[9][14][15] On 29 June, Darmanin announced that the government would deploy 40,000 officers nationwide,[16] including RAID and GIGN counter-terrorist units,[17] to quell the violence.

[18][19][20] On 27 June 2023, at approximately 7:55 a.m. CEST, two Paris Police Prefecture officers spotted a Mercedes-AMG with a Polish registration plate speeding along a bus lane on Boulevard Jacques-Germain-Soufflot in Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France heading towards the Nanterre-Université rail station.

[21] Merzouk was pronounced dead at 9:15 a.m.[22] On 29 June, his family filed a complaint for murder and false reporting, requesting that the case be moved away from Nanterre.

[36][37] Alleged use of racial profiling in traffic stops and identity checks is a recurring issue, which, according to Henri Leclerc (emeritus president of the Human Rights League), contributed to the "revolt".

On this basis, in October 2020, a Parisian civil court awarded €58,500 to 11 plaintiffs who sued the French state for police violence, unjustified identity checks and improper arrests.

The urban unrest was concentrated in Nanterre, where rioters threw projectiles at police, let off fireworks, and set cars, bus shelters, rubbish bins, and a school on fire.

The teenager's mother led the march atop a white lorry wearing a T-shirt reading "Justice for Nahel" and the date of his death.

[63] President Emmanuel Macron canceled a scheduled trip to Germany to handle the issue, after being criticized for attending a concert during the ongoing crisis.

[64][65] After an unauthorized demonstration against police violence in front of the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) in Angers had been dispersed with tear gas, the protestors were accosted by members of the banned far-right group Alvarium armed with baseball bats.

[66] In Brest, a new gym and a social center were destroyed by fire, while the city hall annex, two bank branches and a car dealership also reported damage.

After Hedi Rouabah (21) was hit in the head by a flash-ball, four policemen from the Marseille anti-crime squad [fr] (BAC) dragged him into a dark corner, beat him up and left him for dead on the street.

Prosecutor Stephane Hardouin confirmed that his office had opened an attempted murder investigation, while Jeanbrun called on President Macron to declare a state of emergency.

Olivier Véran, the spokesperson for the government, said that the signatories of the press release titled "Our country is mourning and angry" were "adding fuel to the fire".

[91][92] French gendarmes based in Kourou used tear gas to disperse a crowd that set a bus on fire and attacked a supermarket in the Soula district of Macouria commune.

[92] In the overseas departments and region of Réunion, rioters vandalized buildings and cars, and reportedly threw objects at police beginning on 28 June.

The day before, in Strasbourg, a mobile cultural project was ruined, and that same night in Marseille, an attempt was made to burn down the Alcazar theater, now a library.

Officials, like Metz's deputy mayor for culture, Patrick Thil, were shocked and confused by the attacks on places like libraries that serve the community.

The Association of French Librarians reported that around 40 libraries had been damaged due to the riots, most of which were public and funded locally, but some private ones like the Librairie Occitane had been hit too.

The government asked insurers to increase to 30 days the time allowed for filing and to refrain from seeking legal loopholes to avoid paying out claims.

[105] Nanterre mayor Patrick Jarry, though expressing "shock" over the video,[106] declared on a 28 June news conference that the prefecture had undergone "one of the worst days of its history", urging citizens to "stop this destructive spiral", and adding that "we want justice for Merzouk; we will obtain it through peaceful mobilization.

"[9] According to BBC analysis, the thirteen deaths related to refusal to submit to traffic stops in 2022, along with the amplifying effects of social media, made the memory of the unrest in 2005 a key reason why Macron and the French political establishment reacted quickly to calm matters.

[110][111] On July 12, the director of the IGPN told the law commission of the National Assembly that at least 21 investigations related to police violence "of very different nature and seriousness" had been opened.

[112] Five police officers from the elite RAID unit were taken into custody in Marseille for questioning in the probe over the killing of Mohamed Bendriss, a man who did not even participate in the protests.

The police sick-outs and work slowdowns, initially confined to Marseille and the Bouches du Rhône department, soon spread to other parts of southern France, and to the Paris region.

[117] According to Le Monde, of the three demands, Darmanin only has control over the first: whether or not police officers have their legal defense paid for by the State, which he agreed to have studied.

[121] Video clips falsely linked to the protests were shared on social media, including footage from The Fate of the Furious of cars falling from a building,[122] a video of a fire at a parking lot in Australia,[123] footage taken at a music concert in Mexico,[124] and a 2020 clip showing a Louis Vuitton store in Portland, Oregon in the United States being looted during the George Floyd protests.

[120] Paul Golding, leader of the British far-right party Britain First, shared a mislabeled post of a June 2020 video of armed men from a different period of unrest.

[120] He also shared a February 2022 video of a robbery at the Merced Mall in California with the caption "Immigrant hordes loot a jewellery shop in France",[126] which he subsequently deleted.