President Emmanuel Macron left early from an EU conference in Brussels on Friday to head back to France, where three nights of rioting over the police shooting of a teenager have occurred.
On the second and last day of the summit, Macron cancelled a scheduled press conference to return to Paris. As he walked away from the press, he did not comment.
Meanwhile, Macron will convene his cabinet for a second crisis meeting in two days on Friday, following the most destructive night of rioting.
As rioters clashed with police in towns and cities around France, vehicles and buildings were set on fire, storefronts were harmed, and buses were overturned. Authorities reported that hundreds of police officers were injured, and hundreds of individuals were arrested overnight, Reuters reported.
Gerald Darmanin, the interior minister, announced on Twitter that 667 people had been arrested. On Thursday night, 40,000 cops had been deployed to end a third night of turmoil.
Violence broke out in Marseille, Lyon, Pau, Toulouse, Lille, and areas of Paris, including the working-class neighbourhood of Nanterre, where Nahel M., a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan origin, was shot and killed on Tuesday during a traffic stop.
Nationwide, 249 police officers were injured, authorities said.
