Macron calls crisis meeting as protests rage in France

French President Emmanuel Macron cut short a trip to Brussels and called a crisis meeting with senior ministers Friday as riots over police brutality escalated on their fourth day.

Nearly 500 buildings were damaged, 2,000 cars were set on fire and 4,000 fires were lit across the country Thursday night alone, Macron said.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said police made 667 arrests on Thursday night as police deployments increased.

The riots began after a 17-year-old French-Algerian teen was killed by police at a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday. The shooting set off tensions over long-standing complaints of systemic racism in French policing.

“This morning at Matignon with the ministers to take stock of the violence and abuses of the night,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Twitter.

“The acts committed are intolerable and inexcusable,” she added.

Borne said “all options” are on the table to stop the riots.

The lawyer for the officer who shot the teen, Laurent-Franck Lienard, said the killing was accidental.

“The first words he pronounced were to say sorry and the last words he said were to say sorry to the family. He is devastated, he doesn’t get up in the morning to kill people. He didn’t want to kill him,” Lienard said on BFM TV.

The officer has been charged with homicide.

In response to riots Thursday, the city of Marseille has banned all public demonstrations and will close down its public transport system after 5 p.m. Marseille is the country’s second-largest city.

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