Kylian Mbappe has made a plea for calm to be restored in France following several days of violent protests that erupted after the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old by a police officer.
The incident occurred during a traffic stop in Nanterre on Tuesday, leading to widespread unrest throughout the country.
According to BBC News, consecutive nights of riots ensued, resulting in acts of vandalism and looting of businesses in various cities, including Paris, Nice, Strasbourg, and Marseille.
Law enforcement authorities arrested numerous protesters, and some semblance of calm began to return on Saturday evening.
The police officer involved in the shooting has been taken into custody while awaiting official charges. Mbappe, as one of the most prominent French athletes, has spoken out against the killing but also called for an end to the violence and destruction caused by the rioters.
Mbappe’s message after Nahel’s death
The Paris Saint-Germain attacker, who was recently appointed as the national team’s captain, took to his Twitter account and said;
“Like all French people, we were marked and shocked by the brutal death of young Nahel. Firstly, our thoughts go out to him and his family, to whom we extend our sincere condolences.
Obviously, we cannot remain insensitive to the circumstances in which this unacceptable death has taken place.
Since this tragic event, we have been witnessing the expression of popular anger whose essence we understand but whose form we cannot endorse.
With many of us coming from working-class neighbourhoods, these feelings of pain and sadness, we also share them.
But to this suffering is added that of assisting the powerless to a real process of self-destruction.
Violence solves nothing, even less when it inevitably and tirelessly turns against those who express it, their families, loved ones and neighbours.
The time of violence must end to make way for that of mourning, dialogue and reconstruction.”
The protests led to the country’s President Emmanuel Macron postponing a scheduled trip to Germany, as reported by the Politico.