Belgian police swooped in to make 64 arrests Friday, June 30th, as authorities in Brussels moved to prevent the spread of violence to Belgium following last week’s race riots in France. Social media posts circulating on Thursday night had instructed young men to gather at Place Anneessens in central Brussels approximately 10 minutes from the European Parliament to confront police in an act of solidarity with the French rioters.
Belgian authorities who had been monitoring the online posts had enough prior warning to prepare and immediately deployed riot squads to quell an attempt at importing French-scale rioting in the city.
“As soon as we saw that young people were present, we lined up, which led to the rapid questioning of a large number of people,” one police spokesperson told the Brussels Times as riot squads moved in quickly Friday night to nip the rioting in the bud early on. Despite this proactive approach, multiple fires sprung up around the area of Brussels-Midi, a major transport hub, as cars and bins were set alight. Forty-seven of the 64 men arrested Friday were minors. One police officer was injured in an altercation.
The Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo thanked police for their quick response during an EU summit in Brussels Friday, saying that his country would take a zero-tolerance approach to riots.
Over the weekend the socialist mayor of Brussels Philippe Close said that the violence was motivated primarily by young men looking for fun, speaking to local media as he asked parents to better control their children.
Brussels has a large Islamic population, drawn predominantly from Morocco and Turkey, inhabiting the northern half of the city. Neighborhoods there were rocked by celebratory rioting last year following Morocco’s victory over Belgium in the 2022 World Cup. Unverified social media posts referenced the alleged Moroccan heritage of Nahel M., the teenager shot in Paris, which triggered the wave of protests in order to motivate young men to take to the streets.
Brussels experienced intense race riots in 2006 following the deaths of two young Arab petty criminals while in police custody. Official figures show a total of 17 deaths at the hands of Belgian police since 2017 of people predominantly of North African heritage.
Belgium was not the only jurisdiction to which the French riots have spread. In Switzerland, police made several arrests of young Arab minors as Molotov cocktails were thrown at police cars in the French-speaking city of Lausanne Saturday evening, while in French Guiana a stray bullet killed a government worker during riots inspired by events in France.
