Protests and Sorrow After Fatal Police Traffic Encounter in France

In a working class Paris suburb, two police officers confront a 17-year-old driver in a canary yellow Mercedes who was stopped in traffic. They shout at him, video footage shows, and one officer appears to have his gun drawn. The teenager is then fatally shot in broad daylight.

The shooting — and the diverging accounts of what caused it — led to spasms of violence on the streets and criticism of the officers by French officials normally loath to utter the words “police violence.”

The initial accounts of the events on Tuesday, provided to the French news media by anonymous police sources, claimed the driver had plowed into the officers, leading one to shoot. Then a video surfaced on Twitter.

That footage, believed to have been captured by a witness, showed the car was stopped as an officer on the driver’s side pointed a gun into the vehicle. When the car started to pull away, a blast was heard, and the car hurtled off, crashing into a nearby sidewalk.

The teenage driver died an hour later.

The shooting fed into longstanding complaints about the French police, who have faced accusations of brutality, especially in Paris’s poorer suburbs, which are often home to people from immigrant backgrounds.

As the video spread, President Emmanuel Macron called the shooting “inexcusable.” Lawmakers held a moment of silence for the teenager, whose name was given only as Nahel M.

Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, while taking pains to note the commitment of officers and gendarmes “who are in the field every day,” offered stark criticism, saying the footage showed an operation “that clearly does not appear to comply with the rules of engagement of our police forces.”

Even Gérald Darmanin, Mr. Macron’s tough-talking interior minister and a frequent defender of the police, was unusually critical, saying, “An act like the one that we saw, if the investigation confirms the videos that we have seen, is never justified.”

Local prosecutors in Nanterre, the western suburb of Paris where the shooting occurred, have opened a manslaughter investigation. The officer accused of shooting the teenager has not been publicly identified and has not been charged, but was in custody for questioning.

Alliance Police Nationale, a police union, reacted angrily to Mr. Macron’s comments and said in a statement that police officers, “like any citizen, have the right to the presumption of innocence,” and that it was “inconceivable” for Mr. Macron or other officials to “condemn our colleagues” before the end of the investigation.

So far, no official has disputed the content of the unconfirmed video, which spread widely on social media. The woman who said she had posted the original video on Twitter told The New York Times that it had been given to her by the witness, with whom she is close. The woman asked that her name be withheld to avoid repercussions for sharing the footage.

After unrest erupted overnight Tuesday, Mr. Darmanin said that 2,000 police officers and gendarmes would be deployed across the Paris region on Wednesday evening to contain any more violence. As night fell, sporadic clashes erupted once again in several French cities, including Toulouse and Lille. In Nanterre, protesters set cars on fire and set off fireworks; in Viry-Châtillon, south of Paris, a group of young people set a bus on fire, but no injuries were reported.

During earlier violence, rioters threw rocks and fireworks at riot police, who responded with tear gas. Protesters burned about 40 cars. A City Hall annex in Mantes-la-Jolie, a town west of Paris, was destroyed. And more than 30 people were arrested, according to the French authorities.

Sofia Berkoukeche, 29, an occupational psychologist who has lived in Nanterre for nearly a decade, said on Wednesday that there was “a general frustration with police violence” and called the shooting “the last straw.”

“You can’t take such radical measures to impose order,” said Ms. Berkoukeche, who was working on the terrace of a cafe in the suburb. “It makes the police less credible.”

The shooting inflamed long-simmering anger in suburbs where relations between the police and residents are often freighted with mistrust. In one of the most infamous episodes in the Paris suburbs, two teenagers, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, running from the police were electrocuted in 2005 after they hid in an electrical substation, provoking weeks of violent protests across the country.

It also revived debate about the French police’s use of deadly force, with some left-wing lawmakers saying it was yet more evidence that a 2017 law making it easier for officers to shoot at moving vehicles should be repealed, or at least revised.

The law says officers can shoot if they deem the moving vehicle dangerous to their lives or to those of others. It was passed after several police unions argued that it was needed to better protect officers. Critics have said that it is too vague and might lead to unnecessary deaths. While acknowledging that police shootings at moving vehicles have increased since the law passed, the French authorities have said that the rise is mostly because more drivers are refusing to stop.

Laurent Nuñez, the Paris police prefect, told the French TV channel CNews that the two officers had tried to stop the car on Tuesday because the driver had committed several traffic violations and had not complied with orders to stop, before getting stuck in traffic.

“Why is it that, in our republic, a failure to comply can be punishable by a bullet in the chest or head?” Sabrina Sebaihi, a lawmaker representing the district where the teenager was killed, said in Parliament on Tuesday.

Mr. Darmanin said the officer involved in the shooting would be punished if warranted. Both officers, who are in their late 30s and early 40s, are experienced members of the traffic police and have no record of misconduct, Mr. Darmanin added.

The prosecutor’s office in Nanterre said that the shooting had occurred near Place Nelson Mandela, a square not far from La Défense, a business district northwest of Paris. Two people were in the vehicle, a Mercedes-AMG, in addition to the driver, the office said: One was released after questioning; the other was still being sought after fleeing the scene.

Yassine Bouzrou, a lawyer for Nahel M.’s relatives, said that they were planning to file a complaint accusing the officer of murder. The family would also file suit accusing the other officer of complicity, the lawyer said.

Assa Traoré, an activist whose half brother, Adama Traoré, died of asphyxiation while in custody in 2016 after fleeing a police identification check, said that the video from Tuesday had been key in quickly spurring widespread protests. Many similar encounters are not caught on camera, she noted.

“He is a symbol of all the other ones that we don’t see,” Ms. Traoré said of Nahel M.

Nanterre, with a population of nearly 100,000, is home to one of the Paris region’s largest universities. It is a more working-class area than neighboring cities, though not nearly as impoverished as some of the other suburbs that ring Paris.

Patrick Jarry, the mayor of Nanterre, said at a news conference on Wednesday that the suburb had experienced “one of the worst days of its history.”

“Let us stop this destructive spiral,” Mr. Jarry said. “We want justice for Nahel; we will obtain it through peaceful mobilization.”

A march in the teenager’s name is scheduled for Thursday.

Residents of Nanterre said they were both shocked and unsurprised by the shooting.

Mathilde Emery, a 17-year-old high school student who was on a park bench, said she had known Nahel and described him as an easygoing classmate who liked to joke around.

“We already have a bad perception of the police,” she said. “It’s just disappointing.”

Actors, artists and athletes also noted the shooting with sadness.

The actor Omar Sy and the soccer player Kylian Mbappé both expressed support for Nahel M.’s family on social media.

Writing on Twitter, Mr. Mbappé said, “My France hurts.”

Juliette Guéron-Gabrielle contributed reporting from Nanterre, France, and Catherine Porter from Paris.