Saturday evening, around 7:10 p.m., several dozen individuals attacked the premises “La Maison des Passages”, in Old Lyon, where a conference on Palestine was taking place in which around 140 people were participating. Three people were injured and one individual was arrested by the police. 20 minutes takes stock of events.
A conference planned “for a while”
Saturday, at 6 p.m., collective 69 in support of the Palestinian people organized a conference, “planned for a while”, at La maison des passages, an association premises in Old Lyon. Christophe Orberlin, a surgeon who has already carried out several missions in Gaza, was notably invited to share his experiences there. “It’s a coincidence that it fell on the same day as a march against the extreme right,” said 20 minutes, the secretary of this collective created more than twenty years ago.
According to the organizers, the room was “packed” with the presence of around 140 people, “mainly families, women and the elderly”. “The speeches began around 6:35 p.m.,” continues the member of the collective. Around 7 p.m., law enforcement began to identify small groups milling around the premises. » Ten minutes later, “the first attack” took place. “The volunteers entered to barricade the premises. There was mortar fire, blows from iron bars and all kinds of non-lethal weapons at the door, for many long minutes,” says the secretary.
“It was very scary”
On the other side of the door, the organizers of the event have no doubt about the identity of the attackers in view of the insults chanted. On videos shared on social networks, around fifty individuals, hooded and dressed in black, parade shouting “the street, France, belongs to us”. THE informal group “Guignol Squad” also claimed this action on a Telegram discussion group.
“They kept insulting us and banging on the door,” confides Sony, a student who came to attend the conference out of curiosity. They were trying to break the windows. We saw fireworks going off. It was very scary. » Chairs and tables were installed at window level “as a shield”. Three people were injured due to broken glass. Sony, still very moved by having experienced these events, explains that around him, children were crying.
And the police in all this?
According to the organizers and witnesses to the scene, the police were called “from the first attacks”, around 7:10 p.m. “We had someone on the phone around 7:18 p.m.,” assures the secretary of the collective. We had time to undergo a second charge after a moment of calm. These individuals also left on their own, before the police arrived. »
A version that the Rhône prefecture which ensures that its agents intervened in “thirteen minutes after the first call to 17”. They would therefore have arrived at 7:28 p.m. “Once there, the police were confronted with shocked people, in a very tense atmosphere and had to calm these individuals down to try to understand the situation,” state services explain. Members of the collective were handcuffed for forty-five minutes. The prefecture indicates that a person “identified as belonging to a small ultra-right group” was arrested while fleeing.
Shocking violence for participants
The organizers “deplore” the attitude of the police upon their arrival. “They arrived too late and what’s more, they uttered racist insults to certain people in the collective,” adds the secretary. He denounces “a double attack” when it was the participants who were the “victims”. “We regret that Old Lyon continues to live under this impunity for the extreme right, it is very worrying,” he says. The collective filed a complaint this Sunday morning.
In the aftermath of these events, Sony continues to ask itself: “And if they had managed to get in, what would have happened? Would there have been injuries or deaths? How will the traumatized children present be impacted by this ultraviolent attack? The perpetrators of these acts have quietly returned home and will do it again. » He hopes that these small groups will be “really sanctioned”, in particular “starting with their dissolution and the closure of their premises”.
In a publication this Sunday morning on X (ex-Twitter), the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin assured, by condemning the “violence committed by the ultra-right”, that “significant resources” were mobilized to “challenge the perpetrators” and that an investigation was underway. “We will draw the consequences for the incriminated structures,” he concluded.