PARIS, July 2 (Aljazeera) - The grandmother of 17-year-old Nahel M has called for calm after days of unrest in France over his fatal shooting during a routine police traffic check.

“The people who are breaking things right now, I tell them: stop it,” the woman identified as Nadia by French media told BFMTV on Sunday.

“They used Nahel as an excuse,” she added.

The shooting of the teenager of North African origin, caught on video, has reignited long-standing complaints about police violence and racism by poor and racially mixed urban communities.

Several hundred people on Saturday rallied at Nanterre’s grand mosque, in the Paris suburbs, to express their support for the family as the teenager was buried.

Then, for a fifth night in a row, rioters damaged and ransacked shops, burned cars and buses, and violently clashed with 45,000 police officers sent across the country to quell France’s worst social upheaval in years.