PARIS: Nine people have been arrested over a firework attack on a police station near major venues for this summer’s Paris Olympics, the French capital’s top police official said on Monday.

The Sunday evening attack in the northern suburb of La Courneuve came days after a teenager riding a moped was killed in a car chase with police, echoing a June killing that triggered days-long riots.

“Around 50 people attacked the police station in La Courneuve, mostly with mortar fireworks,” Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told broadcaster TF1.

Videos posted on social media showed groups of people firing a barrage of fireworks at the building’s facade. Police said the attackers also threw stones and Molotov cocktails.

Police responded with sting-ball grenades and flash-ball projectiles, used by riot police as an alternative to firearms. The standoff lasted for about 30 minutes, Nunez said.

The police station suffered no damage.

La Courneuve is located in Paris’ northern suburbs, in the Seine-Saint-Denis department that hosts Olympic venues including the flagship Stade de France stadium.

“We can tie this attack to the death of the 18-year-old killed on Wednesday, named only as Wanys R.,” Nunez said. “The young people clearly came from the neighbourhood where Wanys lived,” he added.

“We did this to demand justice for Wanys,” one young man told AFP on Monday. He declined to give his name, as did several other residents who came forward.

Nunz said the arrested suspects included seven adults aged 18-21 and two minors.

Two police officers were “slightly hurt”, he added.

Nunez said police reinforcements would be deployed in the area around midday on Monday, although further attacks were unlikely.

“The reinforcements will stay there for as long as necessary,” he said.

Wanys R. was being chased by police on Wednesday after refusing to stop for a check.

A video widely shared online showed how his scooter was struck by a police car, killing him and injuring his passenger.

The lawyer representing Wanys’ family on Friday accused the police of hitting him on purpose, while the officers’ own representative insisted it was an accident.

Also on Monday, authorities in Paris strengthened the police presence in La Courneuve near the Paris 2024 Olympics Village following an attack on a police station.

Asked about the danger of riots in northern Paris suburbs during the Olympics, Nunez said there was little risk of that.

“Police have a strong presence there today and that will be even more the case during the Olympics, when we will have a massive presence everywhere in the Paris region, and I have no fear on that level,” Nunez told reporters.

La Courneuve is just a few kilometres from the Olympics Village in the northern suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis, an underprivileged department north of Paris, which hopes to get a boost from Olympics infrastructure investment.

Security is of paramount importance for French authorities with the Paris Olympics due to start on July 26.

Some Paris Olympics sites were vandalised during rioting in the summer of 2023 which was triggered by the fatal shooting of a teenager of north African descent by police.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2024