French police have fired tear gas at protesters marching outside Paris to remember a teen killed at point-blank range by an officer this week.

Some protesters began throwing projectiles at police outside the main local administration building in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, and security forces then dispersed the protest by firing tear gas.

Nanterre is where 17-year-old Nahel M was shot to death.

French President Emmanuel Macron has appealed for calm after unrest over the killing of a teenager by police in a Paris suburb.

“Clearly the emotion that comes with the death of a young man calls for contemplation and calm, and it’s what the government has constantly called for.

“I think this is what should continue to guide the next hours and the tributes. It’s been the subject of reactions, presumably attempts to change what’s happened, and the last hours have been marked by violent scenes at police stations but also schools and town halls.

“It’s absolutely unjustifiable.”

Large crowds join march in Nanterre, a Paris suburb, for Nahel M, a 17-year-old teenager killed by a French police officer during a traffic stop incident.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin says police made 180 arrests during a second night of unrest as public anger spills onto the streets in towns and cities across the country.

The unrest in the French capital and other cities came two days after a 17-year-old was shot dead by a police officer in Nanterre, just outside Paris.

Darmanin was speaking from the suburbs of the northern French city of Lille, where the town hall was set on fire on Wednesday night.

At a march in Nanterre in memory of Nahel, participants have railed against what they perceived as a culture of police impunity and a failure to reform law enforcement in a country that has experienced waves of rioting and protests against police conduct.

“We demand that the judiciary does its job, otherwise we’ll do it our way,” a neighbour of Nahel’s family told Reuters at the march.

Thousands thronged the streets. Riding atop a flatbed truck, the teenager’s mother waved to the crowd wearing a white T-shirt reading “Justice for Nahel” with the date of his death below.

Tuesday’s lethal shooting was the third of its kind in France during 2023.

In 2022, a record 13 people were killed after not complying with a traffic stop according to a police spokesperson.

There were three such killings in 2021 and two in 2020, none in 2019, and six in both 2018 and 2017, according to a Reuters news agency tally, which shows most victims since 2017 were Black or of Arab origin.

France’s human rights ombudsman opened an inquiry into the death on Tuesday, the sixth such inquiry into similar incidents in 2022 and 2023.

More than a thousand people have begun a march in Nanterre as a way to pay tribute to Nahel M.

The teenager’s mother is among the crowd wearing a white T-shirt which reads, “Justice pour Nahel” (Justice for Nahel).

Nahel’s friends and family, as well as local and national government officials, are reported to be among those joining the peaceful march.

French newspaper Le Monde reported that mediators wearing red T-shirts are present and are instructing participants to remain calm.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has called for “appeasement” after last night’s protests as she dismissed the idea of declaring a state of emergency in the country, adding that it was important to “avoid any escalation”.

She addressed the media at Garges-lès-Gonesse, in Val-d’Oise, located in the northern suburbs of Paris, where buildings were damaged on Wednesday night.

“The death of young Nahel is a tragedy, and I understand the emotion it triggers,” she said, later adding that “nothing justifies the violence that occurred that [Wednesday] night”.