‘Justice must pass’: French president makes rare appearance in Paris suburbs to address riots – WBNews

Police officers stand guard in front of protesters holding a flare and a banner during a demonstration against police brutality on Feb. 10 outside a police station in Marseille, France. (Boris Horvat/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) ARGENTEUIL, France — When French police allegedly raped a 22-year-old black man named Théo in the Paris suburbs earlier this month, that was merely the beginning. For almost two weeks, the outskirts of Paris and other major French cities have erupted in often violent protests: cars set ablaze, rioting late into the night. The demonstrations are mostly against police violence, but at their core they are propelled by a deep-rooted anger over structural racism and the perceived failure of the French state to address a long-volatile situation. The “Théo Affair” began with the case of just one young man, but it has now ignited the frustrations of France’s black community, one of the largest in Europe. On Tuesday — largely to calm the rising waters of national crisis in a fraught election year — French President François Hollande made a rare appearance in the Paris suburbs, where many French citizens of African and Arab origin live in low-income housing projects far from the splendor of the center city. Days after visiting Théo in the hospital, an unusual gesture from a French president, Hollande pleaded for an end to the rioting. [Riots outside Paris after police claim an officer’s alleged rape of a black man was an accident] “Justice must pass,” Hollande said, after dozens…more detail