Floyd died last week after a police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air. The death set off protests that spread across America, and now, beyond.
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French protesters took a knee and raised their fists while firefighters struggled to extinguish multiple blazes as a largely peaceful, multiracial demonstration degenerated into scattered tensions. Police said at least 20,000 people joined the demonstration, defying a virus-related ban on protests to pay homage to Floyd and Adama Traore, a French black man who died in police custody.
Similar demonstrations to the Paris protest were planned in other French cities in honor of Traore, who died shortly after his arrest in 2016, and in solidarity with Americans demonstrating against Floyd's death.
The Traore case has become emblematic of the fight against police brutality in France. The circumstances of the death of the 24-year-old Frenchman of Malian origin are still under investigation after four years of conflicting medical reports about what happened.
Thousands of mostly young protesters have marched through central London in an overwhelmingly peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration that culminated in passionate crowds gathering at the heart of Westminster.
The police killing of George Floyd has not only sparked once-in-a-generation protests in the US, but also solidarity demonstrations around the world, including Stockholm and Helsinki on Wednesday.
More than 6,000 people attended a Sweden-organized online protest to express support with the Black Lives Matter movement. Among speakers was Aysha Jones, a Gambia-born and Sweden-based activist and fashion blogger.
Demonstrators stage a protest to show solidarity with demonstrators in the US over the death of George Floyd, in Athens, Greece on June 3, 2020. The demonstrators were holding banners bearing Floyd’s last words "I can't breathe" and chanting slogans against the racist act.
Chanting “I can’t breathe,” thousands marched peacefully through Australia’s largest city, while thousands more demonstrated in the Dutch capital of The Hague.
More protests in various countries are planned later in the week, including a string of demonstrations in front of US embassies on Saturday.
Reported by Zahra Mirzafarjouyan