The reaction to the killing was a potent reminder of the persistent poverty, discrimination, unemployment and other lack of opportunity in neighborhoods around France where many residents trace their roots to former French colonies — like where Nahel grew up.

“Nahel’s story is the lighter that ignited the gas. Hopeless young people were waiting for it. We lack housing and jobs, and when we have (jobs), our wages are too low,” said Samba Seck, a 39-year-old transportation worker in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois.

Clichy was the birthplace of weeks of riots in 2005 that shook France, prompted by the deaths of two teenagers electrocuted in a power substation while fleeing from police. One of the boys lived in the same housing project as Seck.

Like many Clichy residents, he lamented the violence targeting his town, where the remains of a burned car stood beneath his apartment building, and the town hall entrance was set alight in rioting this week.

“Young people break everything, but we are already poor, we have nothing,” he said, adding that “young people are afraid to die at the hands of police.”

China’s Consulate General in Marseille complained to France after a bus carrying a Chinese tour group in the southern city had its windows smashed leading to minor injuries, China’s Consular Affairs Office said in a statement on Sunday.

The Consulate General’s formal complaint called for France to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and their property, the statement said.

The bus was attacked by rioters on Thursday, according to state broadcaster CCTV, during the violence which hit French cities in recent days since the police shooting of a teenager of North African descent. The Chinese tourists have since left France, the Consular Office statement said.

Chinese citizens in France or heading to France should “strengthen prevention” and be “more vigilant and cautious” in light of the riots which have swept across the country in recent days, the Consular office statement added.

Rioting across France appeared to be less intense on Saturday, as tens of thousands of police had been deployed in cities across the country after the funeral of the teenager, although there was some tension in central Paris and sporadic clashes in Nice, Strasbourg and Marseille.

Clashes first erupted on Tuesday night in Nanterre, a town in the western suburbs of Paris, and nearby.

On Saturday, a funeral was held for the teen amid tensions as interior minister Gerald Darmanin claimed that the level of violence appeared to have declined compared to previous nights.

Rioters attacked an Apple store in Strasbourg, France, on Friday (June 30) after a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent was shot by a police officer on Tuesday in the Nanterre suburb of Paris.

Video from La Presse Libre shows people throwing stones and breaking into the shop.

It comes as unrest has flared nationwide for four consecutive nights after the death of the teenager, who has been named as Nahel Merzouk, which was caught on video.

The officer responsible – identified as Florian M., 38 – is on remand after being charged with murder.

Watch a view of Nanterre, a Paris suburb, on Saturday (1 July) as the funeral is held for a teenager who was shot dead by a French police officer.

Nahel Merzouk, 17, died after he was shot in the chest as he sat at the wheel of a stationary Mercedes last Tuesday.

The teenager was laid to rest after an Islamic ceremony close to his home in the north-western Paris suburb,

Nahel’s death sparked widespread unrest for four consecutive nights, as cars and buildings were set ablaze and stores were looted.

Rioters have torched 2,000 vehicles since the start of the unrest. More than 200 police officers have been injured, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said yesterday, adding that the average age of those arrested was 17.

Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti said 30 per cent of detainees were under 18.

More than 700 shops, supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches had been “ransacked, looted and sometimes even burnt to the ground since Tuesday”, finance minister Bruno Le Maire said.

In Marseille, where 80 people had been arrested on Friday, police said they had detained 60 people.

“It’s very scary. We can hear a helicopter and are just not going out because it’s very worrying,” said Tatiana, 79, a pensioner who lives in the city centre.

In Lyon, France’s third largest city, police deployed armoured personnel carriers and a helicopter.

The unrest has revived memories of nationwide riots in 2005 that lasted three weeks and forced then-President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency, after the death of two young men electrocuted in a power substation as they hid from police.

Players from the national soccer team issued a rare statement calling for calm. “Violence must stop to leave a way for mourning, dialogue and reconstruction,” they said on star Kylian Mbappe’s Instagram account.

Hushed and visibly anguished, hundreds of mourners from France’s Islamic community formed a solemn procession from a mosque to a hillside cemetery on Saturday to bury a 17-year-old whose killing by police has triggered days of rioting and looting across the nation.

Underscoring the gravity of the crisis, President Emmanuel Macron scrapped an official trip to Germany after nights of unrest across France.

The government deployed 45,000 police to city streets across the nation to head off a fifth night of violence. Overnight, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted that the night had been calmer than previous ones, thanks to “the resolute action of security forces.”

He put the night’s arrest toll at 427.

Some 2,800 people have been arrested overall since the teen’s death on Tuesday. Darmanin tweeted late Saturday that 200 riot police had been mobilized in the port city of Marseille, where TV showed footage of police using tear gas as night fell.

Near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, hundreds of police with batons and shields stood restlessly along the Champs-Elysées, several in front of the shuttered Cartier boutique. Posts on social media had called for protests on the grand boulevard but the police presence appeared to discourage any large gatherings.

Earlier in the day at a hilltop cemetery in Nanterre, the Paris suburb where the teen identified only as Nahel was killed, hundreds stood along the road to pay tribute as mourners carried his white casket from a mosque to the burial site.

Journalists were barred from the ceremony and in some cases even chased away. Some of the men carried folded prayer rugs.

“Men first,” an official told dozens of women waiting to enter the cemetery. But Nahel’s mother, dressed in white, walked inside to applause and headed toward the grave.

Many of the men were young and Arab or Black, coming to mourn a boy who could have been them.

Hundreds were arrested on the fifth night of unrest in France after the teen was laid to rest yesterday.

Local reports citing the interior minister said that a total of 427 people have been arrested today.

Le Monde reported that violence sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenager appeared to be declining.

As Nahel’s coffin was lowered into the ground, his mother bravely declared: ‘It is finished.’ But Bel Trew is told the country’s reckoning with racism and nights of rioting are only just beginning.

Around 7,000 extra officers were deployed to the French capital.

Pictures show officers heavily armed in riot gear.