PARIS, July 1. /TASS/. French special forces have been dispatched to the Duchere neighborhood in Lyon where unidentified individuals had opened fire using automatic weapons, a reporter for the local Lyon Mag news outlet reported overnight on Saturday.
On Twitter, the journalist, Julien Damboise, reiterated that on Friday night, a man was shooting a hunting rifle at municipal surveillance cameras east of Lyon and the looting and clashes with the police were underway in several neighborhoods.
Earlier, video footage of a powerful explosion was posted on social networks. According to Le Figaro, the blast occurred at a local post office. A similar explosion in Marseille was reported by the BFMTV channel. According to it, the incident occurred in the vicinity of the Old Port and did not result in any casualties.
Unrest broke out in France on June 27 after police shot dead a 17-year-old driver in the Paris suburb of Nanterre who had failed to comply with an order to stop his car. The riots also spread to many other communities and big cities such as Dijon, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, and Toulouse. On the night of June 29, several dozen police cars were burned and administrative and police buildings suffered damage. The Interior Ministry sent 45,000 law enforcement officers to quell riots on the night of June 30. In some cities, special forces troops are patrolling the streets, using armored vehicles and helicopters. A curfew has been imposed in several communities in the capital city to stabilize the situation.