France Police Shooting and Riots: What to Know

Riots convulsed French cities over several days after a police officer shot and killed Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old boy who was driving away from a traffic stop.

The protests, which have pulled in large numbers of young people, have been driven by longstanding grievances in France’s more deprived suburbs, where many people of immigrant origins live, feeling cut off from opportunities and discriminated against by the police.

Here is what we know:

Who was Nahel Merzouk, and what happened to him?

Mr. Merzouk, a French citizen of Algerian and Moroccan descent, lived in a working-class area of Nanterre, a Parisian suburb, and was an only child being raised by his mother. He had dreamed of being a mechanic, his grandmother told a French journalist, and he played on a local rugby team.

A prosecutor said the teenager had been driving in a bus lane and, when officers tried to stop him, drove through a red light to get away. He then got stuck in traffic, and officers approached the car.

The prosecutor said Mr. Merzouk was killed by a single shot that went through his left arm and chest. A search of the car did not find any dangerous material or illegal drugs.

What set off the protests?

Initial reports in the French news media, citing what were described as anonymous police sources, said the teenager had driven into the two officers on the scene. But a video of the shooting that emerged shortly afterward appeared to contradict that account, showing that the officer who fired the shot was not in any immediate danger because the car was pulling away.

The diverging accounts contributed to the violent unrest, which spread to more than a dozen cities.

Protesters burned cars, set fire to buildings and vandalized police stations, lighting fireworks outside them. Thousands of people were arrested and hundreds of police officers were wounded. Tens of thousands of officers have been deployed across the country.

What happened to the police officer who fired the shot?

On Thursday evening, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office announced that the officer had been placed under formal investigation on charges of voluntary homicide and detained.

Pascal Prache, the top prosecutor in Nanterre, said the officer had not met the “legal conditions for the use of the weapon.” The interior minister said the officer would be suspended. Lawyers for Mr. Merzouk have said they will file several complaints against the two officers involved, including one accusing the officer who fired the shot of murder.

The former spokesman for Éric Zemmour, a far-right French presidential candidate, set up a fund to support the family of the police officer, which has raised over one million euros ($1.1 million).

Why has the killing caused so much anger?

The unrest immediately revived memories of 2005, when the deaths of two teenagers running from the police set off weeks of violent protests, with hundreds of young people from poorer suburbs of Paris setting fire to cars and buildings.

In subsequent years, several beatings by the police and deaths in custody have led to protests and fueled widespread accusations of police brutality.

Were any tributes paid to the victim?

On Saturday there was a funeral service for the teenager at a mosque in Nanterre. Hundreds of people participated, so many that they could not all fit in the mosque, and some knelt on the avenue outside.

The mood there was one of anguish and anger as members of the French Islamic community felt stripped of one of their own, in what many said was another tragic example of the discrimination they often endure.

Catherine Porter contributed reporting from Nanterre, France.