Cars were set alight and Molotov cocktails thrown in the city already on high alert after an incident last week, possibly involving a military weapon.
Nantes received reinforcements to ensure security in all immigrant neighbourhoods.
The death of the 22-year-old Aboubakar Fofana, identified by Le Monde, enraged Muslim protesters. They burned cars, set a shopping center ablaze and tossed Molotov cocktails in Breil, a mainly immigrant area of housing estates. Bus shelters and several vehicles were wrecked.
The photograph of the police officer responsible for the shooting was circulated on social media, putting his life in danger.
Insupportable #Nantes https://t.co/15HN9kss9T
— Thibault deMontbrial (@MontbrialAvocat) July 4, 2018
“I’m appealing for absolute calm, as the rule of law will be completely respected,” Nicole Belloubet, the French justice minister, responded on RTL radio on Wednesday.
Violence marred other immigrant areas, Dervallieres and Malakoff, where cars were also torched. In the Dervallières furious demonstrators set on fire the adjacent local town hall as well as the house of justice.
#Nantes s’embrase pic.twitter.com/ZR9BPjVKf9
— Marine Brossard (@MarineBross) July 4, 2018
According to the local police chief, Jean-Christophe Bertrand, the Muslim was shot by police at around 8:30pm on Tuesday when he “refused to comply” and injured an officer when requested to have his car inspected, police sources told Le Monde.
The suspect “reversed at very high speed” and almost ran over two children playing behind the car, before hitting a parked vehicle. He continued his dangerous escape, but an officer took aim and fired a single shot which hit the suspect in the neck.
Fofana, from the Paris suburb of Garges-lès-Gonesse, was accused of theft and his car was listed as a vehicle suspected of being used for drug dealing, according to a police report seen by Le Parisien newspaper. The report confirmed that an arrest warrant had been issued for him.
The suspect had no ID and claimed his name was Mamadou D. “The name given by the driver is known, but the photograph of the individual on file did not match the name,” a police source said.
The police officer who fired at the violent driver, fatally severed his carotid artery. The Muslim was declared dead upon arrival at hospital, police sources told Le Monde.
Johanna Rolland, the mayor of Nantes, urged police to conduct a “fully transparent” investigation, while Pierre Sennes, the public prosecutor for Nantes, said a probe would “determine in what circumstances the policeman used his weapon”.
Neither of the two officials noted the hostile foreign population’s attitude towards law enforcement and their taxpayer-funded institutions.