2005 French riots |
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The following is a timeline of the 2005 French riots that began Thursday, 27 October 2005. Where the source lists events as occurring in a night and following morning, this article lists them on the date of the night, not the following morning. The extent table in the main article does the opposite.
Jacques René Chirac was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.
Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 31 May 2005 to 17 May 2007 under President Jacques Chirac.
The 2005 French riots was a three-week long period of civil disturbances that took place in the suburbs of Paris and other French cities in October and November 2005. These riots involved youth in violent attacks, outbreaks of arson of vehicles and public buildings.
The 2005 French riots led to a domestic and international response.
Nationwide protests occurred in France from February to April 2006 in opposition to a measure set to deregulate labour. Young people were the primary participants in the protests as the bill would have directly affected their future jobs in a way that they considered negative.
The contrat première embauche was a new form of employment contract pushed in spring 2006 in France by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. This employment contract, available solely to employees under 26, would have made it easier for the employer to fire employees by removing the need to provide reasons for dismissal for an initial "trial period" of two years, in exchange for some financial guarantees for employees, the intention being to make employers less reluctant to hire additional staff. However, the enactment of this amendment to the so-called "Equality of Opportunity Act" establishing this contract was so unpopular that soon massive protests were held, mostly by young students, and the government rescinded the amendment.
At age 69, Jacques Chirac faced his fourth campaign for the French Presidency in 2002. He was the first choice of fewer than one voter in five in the first round of voting of the presidential elections of April 2002. It had been expected that he would face incumbent prime minister Lionel Jospin on the second round of elections; instead, Chirac faced controversial far right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen of the law-and-order, anti-immigrant National Front, and won re-election by a landslide; most parties outside the National Front had called for opposing Le Pen, even if it meant voting for Chirac. Slogans such as "vote for the crook, not for the fascist" or "vote with a clothespin on your nose" appeared.
"We must reject extremism in the name of the honour of France, in the name of the unity of our own nation," Chirac said before the presidential election. "I call on all French to massively vote for republican ideals against the extreme right."
Between 23 and 29 September 2006, youths of mainly immigrant descent rioted in Brussels, Belgium, causing the destruction of several shop windows and the burning of ten cars and part of a hospital. The immediate cause of the riots was anger at the unexplained death in custody of a local man of Moroccan origin, Fayçal Chaaban.
Presidential elections were held in France on 21 and 22 April 2007 to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France for a five-year term. As no candidate received a majority of the vote, a second round was held on 5 and 6 May 2007 between the two leading candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal. Sarkozy was elected with 53% of the vote.
In 2004, an armed conflict took place between French and Côte d'Ivoire forces. On 6 November 2004, two Ivorian Air force Su-25 attack fighters launched an air attack on French peacekeepers in the northern part of Côte d'Ivoire who were stationed there as part of Opération Licorne (Unicorn), the French military operation in support of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI). French military forces subsequently clashed with Ivorian troops and government-loyal mobs, destroying almost the entire Ivorian Air Force. Those incidents were followed by massive anti-French protests in Côte d'Ivoire.
Riots in the Val-d'Oise department in France began on 26 November 2007, following the deaths of two teenagers, whose motorcycle collided with a police vehicle. The circumstances recalled those that precipitated the 2005 unrest, which began in Clichy-sous-Bois when two teenagers lost their lives as they evaded arrest while hiding in an electrical substation. As in 2005, the youth victims were of African origin.
Operation 14 July was a failed French operation to rescue Íngrid Betancourt from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in July 2003. Organized by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, the mission failed to make contact with FARC guerrillas and eventually returned home. After details of the operation leaked in the Brazilian press, a political scandal erupted in France.
On April 12, 2015, Baltimore Police Department officers arrested Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American resident of Baltimore, Maryland. Gray's neck and spine were injured while he was in a police vehicle and he went into a coma. On April 18, there were protests in front of the Western district police station. Gray died on April 19.
The 2017 French riots refer to two separate unrelated incidents of unrest in France following claimed abuse of power by police. The first of these riots began on 4 February 2017, in suburbs of Paris, following the alleged rape of a black man named Théo L. by police with a baton. These protests continued until 15 February. The second set of riots began late March when a Chinese man was fatally shot by police officers in Paris. These riots ended the next day.
The yellow vests protests or yellow-jacket protests were a series of populist, grassroots weekly protests in France that began on 17 November 2018 and ended on 28 June 2020. Some minor protests started again after the restrictions linked to COVID-19 were lifted.
Local protests in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area quickly spread nationwide in more than 2,000 cities and towns, as well as over 60 countries internationally in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. In Minneapolis, destruction of property began on May 26, 2020, with the protests involving vandalism and arson. Demonstrations in many other cities also descended into riots and widespread looting. There was police brutality against protesters and journalists. Property damage estimates resulting from arson, vandalism and looting ranged from $1 to $2 billion, eclipsing the highest inflation adjusted totals for the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
On the night of 11 August and the early hours of 12 August 2020, violent clashes took place around the residence of a legislator and the police stations of KG Halli and DJ Halli of the Indian city of Bangalore, Karnataka. A group of Muslims, angered by a Facebook post on Muhammad allegedly shared by Akhanda Srinivas Murthy's nephew, a state legislator of the Indian National Congress, arrived at his house in protest, which later turned violent.
On 27 June 2023, Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old French youth of Moroccan and Algerian descent, was shot at point-blank range and killed by police officer Florian M., when he didn't comply with a request to turn off ignition and attempted to drive away in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, France. Initial reporting on the incident was later contradicted by a video posted online, which led to widespread protests and riots. Symbols of the state such as town halls, schools, police stations, and other buildings were attacked. The Interior Ministry reported that more than 5,000 vehicles had been set on fire, along with 10,000 garbage cans; nearly 1,000 buildings had been burnt, damaged or looted; 250 police stations and gendarmeries had been attacked; and more than 700 police officers had been injured.
A series of riots in France began on 27 June 2023 following the fatal shooting of Nahel Merzouk in an encounter with two police officers in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. Residents started a protest outside the police headquarters on the 27 June, which later escalated into rioting as demonstrators set cars alight, destroyed bus stops, and shot fireworks at police. In Viry-Châtillon, a town just south of Paris with a history of violence towards police, a group of teenagers set a bus ablaze.
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