Seventeen people were arrested as part of a preliminary investigation opened after damage and the kidnapping of an employee on the Lafarge site in Eure.
Seventeen people were arrested this Monday, April 8, in the early morning in the west of France and in the Paris region by investigators from the anti-terrorist sub-directorate (SDAT), BFMTV learned from police and judicial sources. Some are members of the environmental defense collective Les Soulèvements de la Terre.
These arrests take place as part of a preliminary investigation opened after damage and the kidnapping of an employee on the Lafarge site in Val-de-Reuil, in Eure, on December 10, 2023.
Asked, the public prosecutor of Evreux, Rémi Coutin told BFMTV: “this (Monday) at the beginning of the morning, the investigation services seized carried out the arrest of 17 people, suspected of having been part of perpetrators of the acts committed on December 10th.
“These arrests took place for 16 of them in the Normandy region, and more precisely in the departments of Orne, Seine-Maritime, Eure and Calvados. One of them took place in Seine-Saint-Denis. 11 men and 6 women, all adults, are affected. All are adults,” he adds.
Those arrested placed in police custody
The prosecutor indicates that “these arrests took place without incident” and that “all of the people concerned are currently in police custody” of “counts of kidnapping with voluntary release before the seventh day in an organized gang, serious destruction/damage in a meeting, criminal association with a view to preparing an offense punishable by 10 years of imprisonment and violence against persons holding public authority.”
“Police custody takes place under the direction and control of the Evreux public prosecutor’s office, which will communicate again on this subject when it has decided on the follow-up to be given,” he continues.
On the day of the incident, around a hundred people, masked and dressed in white overalls, burst into the Lafarge site.