As protests escalate worldwide, solidarity with U.S. demonstrators is increasingly mixed with local worries.
Paris riot officers fired tear gas Tuesday as scattered protesters threw projectiles and set fires during an unauthorized demonstration against police violence and racial injustice — one scene among many around the world as protests continued over the death of George Floyd in the United States.
Several thousand people had previously rallied peacefully for two hours around the main Paris courthouse in homage to George Floyd and to Adama Traore, a French black man who died in police custody.
Police had banned the protest because of virus restrictions that forbid any gathering of more than 10 people.
As the demonstration wound down, police fired tear gas and protesters could be seen throwing projectiles. Two small fires broke out, and green and gray barriers surrounding a construction site were knocked over.
Meanwhile, thousands marched in Sydney, Australia’s largest city, chanting “I can’t breathe” and “Black lives matter.” Expressions of anger erupted in multiple languages on social networks, much of it under the banner of #BlackOutTuesday.
Diplomatic ire percolated too, with the European Union’s top foreign policy official saying the bloc was “shocked and appalled” by Floyd’s death.
As protests escalated worldwide, solidarity with U.S. demonstrators increasingly mixed with local worries.
“When you refuse to treat the problem of racism … it leads to what we see in the United States,” said Dominique Sopo, head of French activist group SOS Racisme. “The case of George Floyd echoes what we fear in France.”
Floyd died last week after a police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air. The death set off protests that spread across America — and now, beyond.
Similar demonstrations to the Paris protest were planned in other French cities in honour of Traore, who died shortly after his arrest in 2016, and in solidarity with Americans demonstrating against Floyd’s death.
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The Traore case has become emblematic of the fight against police brutality in France. The circumstances of the death of the 24-year-old Frenchman of Malian origin are still under investigation after four years of conflicting medical reports about what happene