“How am I going to get home? This young resident of Reynerie, in Toulouse, stands hesitantly at the corner of Place Abbal and watches without judging masked young people setting up a barricade of containers then setting it on fire in the alley that runs along the back of the shopping center. An umpteenth fire in the streets neighborhoods where mattresses, barriers end up consuming here and there. Anger won Toulouse this Wednesday evening, and more specifically the Mirail, the day after the death of Nahel in Nanterre, killed by a police officer. A drama that recalls in this working-class neighborhood the burning memory of Habib’s death in 1998 and the riots that followed.
Unstoppable onlookers and kindergartens
The first incidents broke out in the early evening, following a call on social networks. The police were stoned, as were the firefighters who came to extinguish the multiple outbreaks. Plumes of black smoke, visible from the city center and dressing the sunset in a gray veil, rose in the sky of the Pink City. Around 9 p.m., many onlookers were still gathered in Abbal Square, observing from afar a huge hearth in kyiv Street. At least three vehicles, thrown loose in the middle of the road were on fire. The helmeted police officers equipped with LBDs, in particular from the anti-crime brigade, were divided into clusters.
On the other side of the ring road, many other fires were also lit in the streets of Bagatelle. Impressive salvoes of firework mortars were fired, while a few hundred meters away, the kindergartens were still well filled on this hot early summer night.