(Reuters) – Tens of thousands of police were deployed in cities across France on Saturday ready for a potential fifth night of rioting after the funeral of a teenager of North African descent, whose shooting by police sparked nationwide unrest.
President Emmanuel Macron postponed a state visit to Germany that was due to begin on Sunday to handle the worst crisis for his leadership since the “Yellow Vest” protests paralysed much of France in late 2018. Some 45,000 police would again be on the street into Saturday night, interior minister Gerald Darmanin said, with reinforcements going to Lyon and Marseille.

At 2345 (2145 GMT), while there was some tension in central Paris and sporadic clashes in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, the situation appeared calmer across the country.
Police deployed tear gas against rioters in Marseille’s main high street around dusk on Saturday. Television images showed there was violence, some pillaging and street battles between police and groups of youths going into the evening.

In Paris, police increased security at the city’s landmark Champs Elysees avenue after a call on social media to gather there. The street, usually packed with tourists, was lined with security forces carrying out spot checks.
Shop facades were boarded up to prevent potential damage and pillaging. The interior ministry said 1,311 people had been arrested on Friday night, compared with 875 the previous night, although it described the violence as “lower in intensity”. Police said about 120 people had been arrested nationwide on Saturday.

Finance minister Bruno Le Maire said more than 700 shops supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches had been “ransacked, looted and sometimes even burnt to the ground since Tuesday”.
Local authorities all over the country announced bans on demonstrations and ordered public transport to stop running in the evening. Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan parents, was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

For the funeral, several hundred people lined up to enter Nanterre’s grand mosque, which was guarded by volunteers in yellow vests, while a few dozen bystanders watched from across the street. Some of the mourners, their arms crossed, said “God is Greatest” in Arabic, as they spanned the boulevard in prayer.
The shooting of the teenager, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism.