By Rob Picheta, CNN
At least 421 people have been arrested across France in protests that went from Thursday night into Friday morning, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told CNN affiliate BFMTV.
Of those, 242 arrests took place in the Paris region in the departments of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, BFMTV said citing Paris police.
More than 100 people have been arrested in Thursday night protests across France, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter.
He said police were instructed to “intervene systematically” and expressed support for the police officers and firefighters who “are doing a courageous job.”
Video from Agence France-Presse shows fires set on the streets of the French cities of Nanterre and Lille on Thursday as protests continue following the fatal police shooting of a 17-year old in Nanterre.
Broken glass could be seen on the streets of Lille, and police and emergency services vehicles were seen driving down the streets, as well as police in riot gear running down streets.
A car was also seen set ablaze with firefighters working to extinguish the fire.
Video also showed police in riot gear walking the streets of Nanterre and a building with billows of smoke was seen, with firetrucks and firefighters surrounding it.
Elsewhere in the city, burning debris was seen on the street, as well as a wall on which “Vengeance pour Nahel” appeared to be spray painted, which translates to “Revenge for Nahel,” referring to the teenager who was fatally shot earlier this week.
From CNN’s Joseph Ataman in Paris
The lawyer of the police officer under formal investigation for the fatal shooting of a French teenager slammed the treatment of his client as “political," claiming his prosecution was being used to try and calm the violent tensions.
“He committed an act in a second, in a fraction of a second. Perhaps he made a mistake, justice will tell,” Laurent-Franck Liénard, the officer’s lawyer told CNN affiliate BFMTV in an interview.
The officer is “devastated” by the death of the teenager Nahel, his lawyer said, adding that he didn’t want to kill him.
Criticizing the calls from members of the public to convict his client, Lienard said, “What do you want in the end? Are you looking for justice or are you looking for chaos?”
He said that any accusations his client lied in a statement were false as he had never made a written statement and that his verbal testimony did not contradict the facts.
From CNN’s Niamh Kennedy in London
France’s elite police force, the RAID, was deployed to the cities of Bordeaux, Lyon, Lille and Roubaix on Thursday night as protests flared up once again across the country over the recent fatal shooting of a 17-year-old teenager by a police officer.
In the northern city of Lille, six people were taken in for questioning after participating in a protest banned by authorities, the regional authority said in a Facebook post.
Local police were assisted by members of the elite police force, the RAID, according to the post.
Similarly, RAID was also deployed in the central French city of Lyon and the northern city of Roubaix, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
In the southwestern city of Bordeaux, the special police force was also deployed, local authority said in a tweet.
Bus and tram services have been suspended in the Île-de-France region, which includes Paris, from Thursday night, the local transport authority said. It’s not clear when the services would resume.
We're pausing our live coverage of protests in France. Read more here.
From CNN's Krystina Shveda
The French police are the most armed among advanced economy countries.
About 260,000 French law enforcement officers, including national police, gendarmerie and municipal police, have nearly 500,000 firearms between them, according to Small Arms Survey estimates.
That is about 765 police guns per 100,000 civilian population compared to just over 300 per 100,000 in the US, according to figures by the Switzerland-based research project.
Germany, with its higher population, has a slightly smaller number of police officers as well as police firearms.
Globally, the country with the highest share of law enforcement guns per population is Belarus, at 1,745 per 100,000 civilians.
When France introduced emergency laws following November 2015 terrorist attacks by the Islamic State in Paris, police allegedly carried out thousands of raids and house arrests, breaking into mosques, handcuffing people or pointing firearms at them, often based on their perceived ethnicity alone, according to Amnesty International.
A 2016 survey by the French Ombudsman found that 53% of men perceived as Black and 49% of men perceived as Arab had been stopped by the French police at least once, against only 17.5% of White men.
More than one in five Arabic men and one in eight Black men said they were stopped more than five times in five years.
From CNN’s Niamh Kennedy
The police officer accused of fatally shooting a French teenager earlier this week has been charged with voluntary homicide and placed in custody, according to CNN affiliate, BFMTV.
BFMTV shared the update on Thursday evening, saying it had learned the news from the local prosecutor.
This comes after BFMTV reported Thursday that more than 6,000 people attended a march in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre in memory of 17-year-old Nahel who was shot during a traffic stop on Tuesday morning.
Trams and buses will shut down in the northern Île-de-France region as violent protests continue to take place over the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old youth in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre earlier this week.
There will be no buses or trams after 9 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET) in the region, Clement Beaune, France's transport minister, said in a tweet.
The decision was made after the region’s president, Valérie Pécresse, made the recommendation to the police prefecture around midday, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported.
Meanwhile, at least 10 schools have shut down throughout the country, in locations including Créteil, Versailles and Lille, BFMTV reported citing a French Education Ministry spokesperson.
Around 50 school establishments have been closed due to damage following violent outbursts on Wednesday, BFMTV added.
