PARIS, July 3. /TASS/: In the last 3 days, the French police have detained 3,200 people during the riots that engulfed the country after a police officer killed a 17-year-old in Nanterre, French Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin said during a briefing Monday.
"Law enforcement has been very active. A total of 3,200 people have been detained in three days, an unprecedented figure," he said, noting that the average age of the detainees is 17 years.
"Out of these 3,200 people, 60% have never had any problems with the law before," the minister underscored.
Darmanin added that "it is necessary to keep an open line of communication with the neighborhoods while simultaneously being hard on the hoodlums."
"We should not look for social explanations for the riots where there are none," he believes.
The riots in France started on June 27, after a 17-year-old driver refused to comply with a traffic officer’s order. The policeman who fired his service weapon at the teenager of Algerian origin has been detained.
During the meeting in the Presidential Palace on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the authorities will side with the police and the gendarmerie. He demanded that the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice take all necessary measures to restore public order in the republic.
