The riots across France have reached unprecedented levels of vandalism, arson and violence. France has deployed 45,000 police officers backed by light armoured vehicles to tackle a fourth straight night of violent protests.
The protests across the nation are a fallout of a fatal police shooting of a teenager.
Crack police units and other security forces fanned out across the country to quell violence and rioting over the shooting, which took place during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb on Tuesday.
Malls and showrooms have been looted. There has been vandalism and arson on the streets and rioters have reportedly looted armories and video footage of armed rioters have surfaced all over social media. NDTV cannot verify the authenticity of these videos, but most have been shared by verified social media handles.
French President Emmanuel Macron has rushed back from an EU summit and has chaired a top-level crisis meeting.
The unrest was sparked by the killing of 17-year-old Nahel, which revived longstanding grievances about policing and racial profiling in France's low-income and multi-ethnic suburbs.
He is due to be buried in a ceremony on Saturday, according to the mayor of Nanterre - the Paris suburb where he lived and was killed.
Here are some shocking visuals that have surfaced on social media:
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told TF1 television that crack units from both the police and the paramilitary gendarme force were among the 45,000 officers deployed Friday.
This compares with 40,000 the night before, when the police force failed to prevent 492 structures being damaged, 2,000 vehicles being burned and 3,880 fires started nationwide, according to government figures.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne also announced the cancellations of large-scale events - such as concerts - across the country.
Buses and trams, targeted in some of the previous nights' violence, stopped running at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) and the sale of large fireworks and inflammable liquids has been banned.
The Paris region's bus and tram lines remained "severely disrupted" on Friday, the RATP transport operator said, after a dozen vehicles were torched overnight in a depot and some routes were blocked or damaged.
There was daylight looting Friday in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where rioters targeted an Apple Store and other shops.
A curfew was installed in at least three towns in the Paris region and several others elsewhere in the country.
(Disclaimer: NDTV cannot verify the authenticity of these videos, but most have been shared by verified social media handles).
(Inputs from AFP)
