Macron hobnobs with Elton John as France burns

France is in chaos after another night of violence sparked by the shooting of a teenager by a Paris policeman. Cars have been torched, roads barricaded and hundreds of people arrested. But while the country’s security forces have been struggling to keep order, France’s president Emmanuel Macron has been keeping himself busy: attending an Elton John concert and posing for backstage pictures with the star and his husband, David Furnish.

‘While France was on fire, Macron was not at the side of his minister of the interior or the police but he preferred to applaud Elton John,’ Thierry Mariani, an MEP for National Rally, said. The picture – of Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at the Paris gig – was shared on Instagram yesterday morning by Furnish.

Tens of thousands of police officers have been deployed but there is little sign of the violence ending. The 38-year-old officer who shot the teenage boy, named as Nahel, has been charged over the shooting and remains in police custody.