Children as young as 12 or 13 have been detained for attacking law enforcement and setting fires during six nights of violence after the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk in suburban Paris.

The average age of the 3,354 people arrested over the past week was 17, the interior minister Gerald Darmanin said.

In all, 99 town halls have been attacked during the unrest, including an attempt to ram a burning vehicle into the home of l’Hay-les-Les Roses mayor Vincent Jeanbrun. His wife and one of his young children were injured during the attack, which began at the weekend while they slept.

“We saw the real face of the rioters, that of assassins,” Mr Jeanbrun said in an emotional speech. France and “democracy itself” were being attacked in the days of rioting, he said.

Meanwhile, an “insulting” fundraiser set up for the family of the police officer who shot Nahel has amassed more than €1 million (£840,000).

Organised by Jean Messiha, a former adviser to the French far-right politician Marine Le Pen, the appeal has raised far more than the donation page set up for the family of the teenage victim.

The Zulu king, head of South Africa’s most influential traditional monarchy, said on Monday he was “fit and sound,” and denied rumours he had been poisoned.

“I’m very well, I’m very fit and sound,” Misuzulu Zulu told AFP in a phone interview from the neighbouring country of Eswatini, where he is undergoing a medical check-up.

The 48-year-old king ascended the throne last year after the death of his father, Goodwill Zwelithini, after a bitter feud over the royal succession.

Over the weekend, the influential Zulu prime minister, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, said that the monarch had been hospitalised in Eswatini after falling ill.

Buthelezi said there were “suspicions that he was poisoned,” after the unexpected death of one of his close advisers, believed to have ingested a toxic substance.

But asked by AFP if he was ever in a hospital the king said “never”.

“It was a procedural routine check-up that I do every three months, sometimes every six months,” he said in a terse interview.

The royal spokesman, Prince Africa Zulu, told AFP on Monday that the Zulu king had spent the day working, including meeting a Chinese delegation, but gave no further details.

The spokesman later shared a video in which the king said he had suffered “no poisoning whatsoever.”

He also said it was not confirmed that his aide had been poisoned.

The king said he needed to be away from home to process the loss of his “right-hand man” and he chose Eswatini, where his uncle King Mswati III reigns. The timing of the trip also coincided with his regular health checkups.

“It’s not because I’m poisoned, I’m well, I feel 100 percent (well)… everything is well functioning, there’s nothing wrong with me,” he said in the video clip.

He also said he would launch an investigation into the weekend reports about his health.

Buthelezi had claimed that the current king preferred treatment in Eswatini because “his parents had both received treatment in South Africa and subsequently died”.

Last September, another counsellor of the Zulu king was shot dead in mysterious circumstances on the sidelines of a traditional ceremony.

Although the title of king of the Zulu nation does not bestow executive power, the monarch wields great moral influence over more than 11 million Zulus, who make up nearly a fifth of South Africa’s population of 60 million people.

King Zwelithini, who died after more than 50 years in charge, left six wives and at least 28 children.

Misuzulu is the first son of Zwelithini’s third wife, who he designated as regent in his will.

The queen however died suddenly a month after Zwelithini, leaving a will naming Misuzulu as the next king — a development that did not go down well with other family members.

Kyiv has placed British consumer goods giant Unilever on Ukraine’s “International Sponsors of War” list, claiming Monday it continues to profit from operations in Russia, triggering demonstrations in London.

“The National Agency on Corruption Prevention has added British company Unilever onto its list of ‘International Sponsors of War’,” a statement said.

This was owing to its “presence in the Russian Federation and its significant taxes to the Russian state budget, thereby supporting the aggressor’s economy and contributing to the continuation of Russia’s war against Ukraine”, it added.

Unilever, whose major brands include Dove soap, Magnum ice cream and Cif surface cleaner, said it stuck to a statement it made in February, in which the company said it continued “to condemn the war in Ukraine as a brutal and senseless act by the Russian state”.

It also maintained it had ceased imports and exports of its goods into and out of Russia.

At the same time, the statement said Unilever was supplying “everyday food and hygiene products made in Russia to people in the country”, adding that “exiting is not straightforward”.

Ukrainian and British activists on Monday demonstrated outside the company’s London headquarters where a billboard, resembling an advert for Dove but which showed wounded Ukrainian soldiers, was displayed.

Unilever’s results for 2022 showed that two percent of net profit was earned thanks to its operations in Russia.

The Kyiv School of Economics estimates that Unilever last year paid at least $331 million in Russian taxes.

Campaign group Global Witness has meanwhile accused French energy giant TotalEnergies and British counterpart Shell of still profiting from Russian gas.

Questioned by AFP over the weekend claims, the two companies said they were bound by contracts, adding however they had exited Russian partnerships following Moscow’s invasion last year.