** Nanter, nerves after the riots at night: the smell of tear gas in the residential complex.

At the Pablo Picasso residential complex in Nanterre, smoke was still rising from burned and disfigured cars on Thursday morning. Glass fragments are scattered on the sidewalks from shattered bus stops that children on scooters are trying to avoid, and a piercing smell of burning tires and melted asphalt hangs in the air. After several hours of clashes between young people and the police until the early hours of the morning, a fresh inscription on the buildings reads: "Justice for Nahele. Police and state, fuck off".

France is grappling with suppressing anger in such residential complexes after the death of17-year-old Nahele, of Algerian descent, who was shot by the police on the street in Nanterre, west of Paris, during a traffic violation stop on Tuesday. Politicians fear outbreaks of unrest across the country. A night of inaction lasted into the early hours of Thursday when clashes with the police, arson of cars and buildings spread from residential complexes around Paris to Lille and Rouen in the north and Toulouse in the southwest.

In the residential complex Pablo Picasso, there was an atmosphere of anger, sadness, and shock. Nahel grew up here, within sight of the gleaming mirror towers of the business district of Paris, La Defense. Neighbors describe him as "an ordinary child, like everyone else."

The youth from the residential complex clashed with the police until approximately4 am, with loud explosions from fireworks thrown at the rows of police officers. Dozens of cars were set on fire, as well as trees. Tear gas released by the police officers infiltrated many apartment buildings, causing parents to fear for the health of their children. In the morning, burnt fire extinguishers lay on the ground among charred metal debris.

Kendra,42 years old, was walking along a row of burnt cars early in the morning to find her father's burnt car, which is now covered in white ash. He was a retired railway worker from Cameroon, and his children were trying to help him file an insurance claim this morning..

"Last night, for hours on end, there were young people everywhere, groups on different roads," she said. "The police, and even the fire brigade, were pushed back because they were attacked. It was war. I really think that young people here see themselves as combatants. They see it as a war against the system. It's not just against the police, it goes further, otherwise we wouldn't see it all over France. Municipalities and buildings are also being attacked. The death of this teenager has triggered something. There's a lot of anger here, but it goes deeper, there's a political aspect, a feeling of a non-functioning system. The youth feels discriminated against and ignored."

Kendra, who founded a cosmetic business that she closed during the pandemic, is distressed by the night of disorder and struggles to explain the devastated landscape of burned roads and cars to her young children. "I hardly slept all night.

Patrick, a builder from Martinique who moved to this residential complex20 years ago with his wife, surveyed the charred roads and cars. "It's devastating. It was really brutal. From10pm to3am, I sat inside, listening to the deafening blasts from fireworks thrown at the police. I'm afraid there'll be more of this in the coming nights."

Sherin,36 years old, a mother of three children, living in a high-rise building near her grandmother Nahel, says she observed from the window how the sky lit up with fireworks thrown at the police. "The noise of explosions and blasts was deafening at night. Tear gas rose to our windows and painfully burned our eyes. We really feared that a fire would break out below the building, and we would be trapped, unable to escape. It's very difficult. It is us, the people living here, who suffer from this. We are really scared."

In the residential complex, young local mothers of North African descent, like Nahil's family, say they regularly face racism and discrimination and are afraid for their children.

Sara, 30 years old, mother of four boys living in an apartment complex, says: "The situation here can be compared to the issues of police shootings and racism in the U.S. People here say it's wrong for the police to kill a young person of color at close range for a traffic violation. The youth are fed up with racism in general. I have four sons, and I worry about all of them. But I'm afraid that this reaction, when young people encounter the police at night in apartment complexes, will only make things worse. Right-wing politicians will say, 'Oh, here they go again,' and will use this against the people living in the complexes. We sincerely hope that everything will calm down. We really hope that we can sleep peacefully tonight."