Source: Attaque
Rage, everywhere
Le Monde / Thursday June 29, 2023
The night of Wednesday June 28 to Thursday June 29 was marked by major tension and damage in many Paris suburbs, with urban violence spreading to other French cities such as Toulouse and Lyon, following the death in Nanterre of Nahel M., a 17-year-old teenager killed by a police officer for refusing to obey orders.
Although calm in the early evening, the situation then became tense in the Hauts-de-Seine suburb, already the scene of clashes between residents and police during the night. More than a dozen cars and dumpsters were set on fire, and barriers were placed on the road, as Le Monde journalists observed. The walls of one building were tagged with the words “Justice for Nahel” and “Police kills”.
At 2 a.m., small, highly mobile groups were still clashing in the Pablo-Picasso district. Police forces had withdrawn and were no longer visible in a part of the housing estate that had come under the complete control of the rioters. The fire department has also retreated, according to our local reporter Luc Bronner.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had announced the mobilization of 2,000 police and gendarmes in Paris and its inner suburbs for Wednesday evening, 800 more than last night.
Incidents were also reported in several towns in the Hauts-de-Seine district. In Clamart, a tramway train was set on fire, according to a police source.
Around twenty communes in Seine-Saint-Denis reported incidents, according to a police source, sometimes in normally quiet towns such as Dugny. According to this source, each time there were groups of less than a hundred highly mobile people on the scene. The Préfecture de Police reported 35 arrests shortly before 2 a.m.
In Essonne, a group of people set fire to a bus at around 9 p.m. after removing the passengers in Viry-Châtillon, according to police sources. Clashes also broke out shortly after 8 p.m. in the Mirail district of Toulouse, where several vehicles were set on fire, with police and firefighters receiving projectiles, according to a police source.
In several areas of Dijon, the authorities reported the burning of rubbish dumpsters and the firing of fireworks. In Lyon and the surrounding area, as well as in Vénissieux, Bron and Villeurbanne, the police were targeted by firework mortars. A fire probably caused by pyrotechnic fireworks broke out in a building in Villeurbanne, leaving four people slightly injured, the fire department said. “Some apartments” were destroyed by the fire and ten households, or 35 people, were rehoused. Four people were also hospitalized with mild poisoning. In Vaulx-en-Velin, the police station was targeted before the police intervened.
Elsewhere, tensions were reported in Roubaix (Nord), Amiens and Nice, according to a police source. Some incidents, as in Saint-Etienne, Lille and Rennes, took place on the edges of rallies in support of Soulèvements de la Terre, the recently disbanded environmental movement.
The security post at the entrance to the Fresnes prison estate (Val-de-Marne) was attacked with fireworks by rioters on Wednesday night, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learnt from a police source.
Videos consulted by AFP show around twenty hooded youths attacking the guard post at the entrance to the estate with firework mortars and various projectiles.
Continue reading “France: ‘La rage, partout’ Responses after the umpteenth police execution”
