France Riots Led To Move More Than 700 Prison Terms

The country’s justice minister said Wednesday more than 700 people have been condemned to prison for rioting in France late last month.

In total, 1,278 verdicts have been issued, with more than 95 percent of defendants convicted on counts ranging from vandalism to assaulting police officers.

Hundred of people have already been imprisoned.

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said, “It was extremely important to have a response that was firm and systematic”.

“It was essential that we reestablish national order”, he added.

On June 27, the most serious urban unrest in France since 2005 began when a police officer shot dead a 17-year-old kid with North African heritage during a traffic stop west of Paris, in an incident witnessed by a passerby.

After four nights of fierce fighting, the disturbances were put down mainly to the deployment of around 45,000 security officers, including elite police special forces and armored vehicles.

Dupond-Moretti had led calls for strong sentences to be handed down as a deterrence, with some counts remaining open during the weekend of the riots to deal with a backlog of cases.

Many accused faced urgent appearances, and some defence lawyers expressed worries about the impartiality of the judicial process and the heavy use of jail penalties.

The average age of the nearly 3,700 arrestees was 17, with the minors appearing in separate children’s courts.

The number of persons sentenced to prison already exceeds the number sentenced during the previous significant riots in 2005, when roughly 400 people were imprisoned.

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