Emmanuel Macron was filmed dancing at a concert as violent protests gripped France following the fatal shooting of a teenager.
On Tuesday, a 17-year-old identified as Nahel M was shot dead during a traffic stop in Nanterre, a working-class town on the western outskirts of Paris, triggering riots throughout the country.
Footage has emerged of the French president attending an Elton John concert in Paris on Wednesday night, the second evening of the violent protests.
In the video, Mr Macron is seen alongside his wife, Brigitte, dancing as the singer performed Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting.
Photos were also posted of the pair with Sir Elton and his husband, David Furnish.
On Friday Mr Macron was holding emergency talks to discuss the riots which has seen some 875 people arrested and up to 200 police officers injured across the country.
Some 40,000 officers have been deployed across France with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Friday denouncing what he called a night of “rare violence.”
The French President added on Friday that social networks are playing a “considerable role” in the spreading unrest triggered by the deadly police shooting of a 17-year-old boy.
He said he wants social media such as Snapchat and TikTok to remove sensitive content and that violence is being organised online.
Of young rioters, he said: “We sometimes have the feeling that some of them are living in the streets the video games that have intoxicated them.”
Separately, the detained police officer’s lawyer, speaking on French TV channel BFMTV, said the officer was sorry and “devastated”.
“He doesn’t get up in the morning to kill people,” Laurent-Franck Lienard said of the officer, whose name has not been released. “He really didn’t want to kill. But now he must defend himself, as he’s the one who’s detained and sleeping in prison.”
The unrest has extended as far as Brussels, where about a dozen people were detained during scuffles related to the shooting in France and several fires were brought under control.
In several Paris neighbourhoods, groups of people hurled firecrackers at security forces.
The police station in the city’s 12th district was attacked, while some shops were looted along Rivoli street, near the Louvre museum, and at the Forum des Halles, the largest shopping mall in central Paris.
Twelve buses were set on fire in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers alone, while an overnight curfew was imposed in the nearby town of Clamart.
The French government has stopped short of declaring a state of emergency — a measure taken to quell weeks of rioting around France that followed the accidental death of two boys fleeing police in 2005.
Yet Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne suggested on Friday the option is being considered.
