French teenager dies after police car hits scooter near Paris

French government calls for calm with police dispatched to site of accident as precautionary measure

A 16-year-old boy has died after his scooter collided with a police vehicle near Paris.

The teenager was taken to Beaujon Hospital in Clichy and was in a serious condition after the accident on Wednesday evening at Elancourt in Yvelines, local media reported. The boy, however, passed away in the evening.

The teenager was not named by local media.

Government spokesman Olivier Veran called for “calm”, saying investigations were under way to determine the “exact circumstances” of Wednesday’s collision.

“Obviously I am calling for calm.... I am calling for restraint and careful consideration,” he said on France Inter radio.

“Regardless of how dramatic a situation is, it needs answers that we do not yet have.”

At the time of the accident, another police car was trailing the teenager, authorities said. The scooter collided with the left side of one of the police vehicles.

The Versailles prosecutor’s office confirmed that both police officers operating the vehicles involved were arrested on Wednesday evening.

“My colleagues shot in the area, they saw him a second time, at that time he fled again. A little further he hit a second police vehicle on an intersection,” senior police official Tony Vallee was quoted as saying by BFMTV.

Two separate investigations have been initiated, with law enforcement authorities saying the tragedy stemmed from the boy’s refusal to comply.

An inquiry was initially launched for “involuntary injury”, but has been reclassified as a case of “manslaughter”, local media said.

Additionally, a second investigation has been initiated for “refusal to comply” and assigned to the Yvelines departmental security.

Several policemen were dispatched to Elancourt later during the day as a precautionary measure in case of potential incidents or disturbances.

In late June, the death of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb ignited five days of riots and looting in the area.

The shooting had occurred after the 17-year-old was gunned down in his car for failing to stop. He was then allegedly caught driving through a bus lane at rush hour.

Nahel’s family claimed the officer “planned” the attack “in his head”.

“They took my baby,” Nahel’s mother had said in a TikTok video.

“He was still a child, he needed his mother. This morning he gave me a big kiss and told me he loved me. I told him be careful and I loved him.”