In Pictures | Unrest in France

Unrest continues in France, where a a 17-year-old was shot dead by the police

Rioting raged in cities around France for a fourth night despite massive police deployment, including in cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille as well as Paris where Nahel M., a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot on Tuesday in the Nanterre suburb.

His death, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism.

Buildings and vehicles have been torched and stores looted, and the violence has plunged President Emmanuel Macron into the gravest crisis of his leadership since the Yellow Vest protests that started in 2018. The fatal shooting of Nahel, whose last name has not been made public, stirred up long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects who struggle with poverty, unemployment and racial discrimination.

The subsequent rioting is the worst France has seen in years and puts new pressure on Mr. Macron, who appealed to parents to keep children off the streets and blamed social media for fueling violence. Mr. Macron denies there is systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies.