Protests in France continue even after police officer accused of shooting teen apologises

France: French police braced for more violent protests Thursday over the fatal shooting of a teen by a policeman that has left authorities scrambling to contain an escalating crisis.

According to an internal security note, the coming nights are expected “to be the theatre of urban violence” with “actions targeted at the forces of order and the symbols of the state”, a police source said.

One Paris suburb, Clamart, has already declared an overnight curfew, between 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) and 6:00 am from Thursday until next Monday.

France has been roiled by two nights of protests after a 17-year-old named Nahel was shot point-blank Tuesday during a traffic stop that was captured on video.

“I don’t blame the police, I blame one person: the one who took the life of my son,” Nahel’s mother, Mounia, told the France 5 channel in her first media interview since the shooting.

More than 400 people have been arrested across France, officials said, as unrest spread to major cities during a third night of riots triggered by the deadly police shooting of a teenager of Algerian and Moroccan descent during a traffic stop.

At least three towns around Paris, including Clamart, Compiègne and Neuilly-sur-Marne, imposed full or partial night-time curfews as a police intelligence report leaked to French media predicted “widespread urban violence over the coming nights”.

Bans on public gatherings were instated and helicopters and drones mobilised in the neighbouring cities of Lille and Tourcoing in the country’s north.

A lawyer for the officer accused of shooting the 17-year-old known as Nahel M in Nanterre, a suburb west of central Paris, said he had offered an apology to the teen’s family.