Monday, a minor was arrested as part of the investigation opened after the fire which partially damaged the facade of the Raymond-Queneau high school, in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, in the North, learned 20 minutes with the Lille public prosecutor’s office.
This school is regularly affected by blockades organized by high school students, mobilized against the pension reform. But Monday morning, before the start of classes, several individuals deliberately set fire to “shopping carts, pallets and mattresses” constituting a barricade in front of the entrance to the school. The flames had time to seriously degrade the facade before the intervention of the firefighters.
A 10-year prison sentence
While the intentional nature of the fire was not in doubt, the Lille prosecutor’s office immediately opened an investigation by the head of “damage by fire or dangerous means”. The investigations quickly made it possible to identify one of the suspects, a “high school student, aged 15 and a half”, specifies the prosecution, adding that he was arrested and placed in police custody.
The prosecution points out that for these facts, “the penalty incurred is 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 euros”, but that the addition can be much higher if a person were to be injured with an ITT of 8 days or more. From a misdemeanor, we would pass to a crime, with a sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment, 20 years if the acts were committed in an organized gang and even a sentence of criminal imprisonment for life if the fire causes the death of a person.