The culture secretary has said she is “worried” about the ongoing riots in France as unrest elsewhere “sometimes feeds through into this country”.
France has now endured a sixth night of violence and rioting after the killing of a teenager by police sparked nationwide unrest.
Lucy Frazer made the admission as she announced £3 million in funding for youth organisations to offer additional opportunities for young people through the summer holidays to reduce antisocial behaviour.
Asked about how the UK government would tackle riots by teenagers, such as those currently being seen in France, Ms Frazer told Sky News she was “pleased” Britain is not experiencing that.
She said the government is taking action to ensure there are “positive things for young people to do”.
“We’ve put in significant funds in order to stop young people going down the wrong path,” she said, citing efforts to support young people in the criminal justice system and those at risk.
Pushed for her view on the riots in France, she added that she is “worried about what is happening in France” and that unrest “sometimes feeds through into this country”.
She argued supporting young people and providing them with positive activities is how to stop such riots from happening.
Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old, was shot dead by a police officer in the Paris suburb of Nanterre during a traffic stop on Tuesday, triggering days of fierce clashes.
Nahel was pulled over for breaking traffic rules, prosecutors have said, and police initially reported that one officer had shot at the teenager because he was driving his car towards him.
The version of events was quickly contradicted by a video circulating on social media.
The police officer faces preliminary charges of voluntary homicide for shooting Nahel.
Based on an initial investigation, the prosecutor Pascal Prache concluded that “the conditions for the legal use of the weapon were not met”.
Nahel was of North African descent and the killing has fed longstanding complaints of police violence and systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies.
According to the French interior ministry, 78 arrests were made nationwide on Sunday — a sharp drop from the previous 24 hours which took the total to more than 3,000.
Emmanuel Macron’s government deployed 40,000 officers on Thursday, when 875 people were arrested.
Speaking this morning on her new funding package, Lucy Frazer told Sky News this morning that the programme would “provide activities” for young people, saying if they are unable to find things to do, they “go down the wrong path”.
She said: “We are giving them something to do and somewhere to go” to have a “constructive summer”.
She said young people, “if they don’t have things to do, they go down the wrong path, not the right one”.
