New urban violence punctuated the night from Thursday to Friday in Lyon, Nantes, Saint-Etienne or Annecy, but also smaller towns, after the death of Nahel, 17, killed by police shooting in Nanterre on Tuesday. To stem a “generalization” of urban violence, the authorities had mobilized 40,000 police and gendarmes, as well as elite intervention units such as the Raid (police) or the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN). A massive deployment did not prevent the burned buses, stoned trams, burned cars, targeted town halls or schools, etc. 20 minutes looks back on this night of violence, looting and looting, with his editorial staff in the regions, while Emmanuel Macron let it be known this Friday morning that he was ready to adapt the policing system “without taboo”.
In Ile-de-France
In Seine-Saint-Denis, “almost all the municipalities” were affected, according to a police source. Many supermarkets were looted, particularly in Montreuil and Epinay-sur-Seine. In Drancy, rioters used a truck to force the entrance to a shopping center which was partly looted and burned, said a police source. In Hauts-de-Seine, Nanterre is “the epicenter” and concentrates the “majority” of incidents, according to the police, who note a “dispersion in other calm towns so far”, such as Châtillon and Sèvres. The Pablo Picasso city in Nanterre, where Nahel was from, also experienced a third night of sustained violence with burned cars, firework mortars and homemade grenades, noted an AFP journalist. A Crédit Mutuel bank branch was set on fire.
In Strasbourg
In Strasbourg, the Bas-Rhin prefecture recorded “74 vehicles burned during the night”, after already 66 the previous night, according to a police unionist. “Two schools suffered significant damage. These are the Sophie Germain college and the Marguerite Perey primary school ”, where the prefect went in the morning. “Other public buildings suffered lighter damage, including the district town hall at Neuhof”, further specifies the prefecture, noting that there were no injuries in the department. The Raid had also been deployed there to support the police in the districts of Meinau and Cronenbourg, according to the same source.
In Alsace and Lorraine
Lorraine and Alsace experienced another night of violence during which many damages were committed, with in particular two district town halls set on fire in Metz. “The district town halls of Borny and Bellecroix were burned down last night as well as the hall of the Music Box”, the music and performance hall built in the heart of the Borny district, said the mayor (ex-LR ) François Grosdidier, who spent part of the night at the municipal police command center to follow the events.
In Woippy, if the police station itself, protected by grilles, was not set on fire, the surrounding environment was destroyed, “the thugs attacked the Second Chance School, services intended for to the population”, still lamented the elected official. “The contrast was extremely striking between the serene city center of Metz and the neighborhoods around it, as if we were in two parallel worlds,” added François Grosdidier. The Moselle prefecture reported 48 vehicles burned overnight in the department.
In Meurthe-et-Moselle, the Raid was engaged in Mont-Saint-Martin, according to the prefecture. On Twitter, the mayor of Nancy, Mathieu Klein (PS), indicated that “the Haut-du-Lièvre district town hall went up in smoke”.
In Nantes
The night from Thursday to Friday was marked by heavy damage in Nantes, in various working-class areas of the city. To the north of the city, a town hall annex was damaged by fire. Several businesses were destroyed, including an almost new decoration store of the Centrakor brand. To the south, an electric double bus (busway) was ravaged by flames. The rioters previously ordered the passengers to get off before setting fire to the vehicle. Bellevue district, west of Nantes, the Lidl supermarket and nearby Mc Donald’s were ransacked and looted. The images of the ram car smashing the Lidl, surrounded by many young people, are turning a lot on social networks. In Saint-Herblain, on the outskirts of Nantes, a post office and a service building were set on fire. Several cars were also set on fire in the town.
In Lille and Roubaix
Despite the deployment of many police officers in Roubaix, including the Raid, the riots of the night caused great damage. The iconic performance hall, the Colosseum, was attacked. Worse, in the sensitive Alma district, a call center employing several hundred people, mainly from this district, was set on fire. And a fire broke out this Friday morning, around 5 a.m., at the François-Launay school, in the working-class district of Moulins, in Lille.
In Amiens
Public buildings were targeted, such as in Amiens where a kindergarten was partly burned down and the reception of children was impossible on Friday morning, according to the prefecture.
In Pau
The police office located at the Laherrère pole in Pau was targeted by a molotov cocktail, according to the Pyrénées-Atlantiques prefecture.
In Albi
The riots won overnight from Thursday to Friday, the working-class district of Cantepau in Albi (Tarn) where the first incidents broke out around 1 a.m. Several attempts to break into public buildings are to be deplored, with the burning of a meeting room, ransacked premises and the burning of company vehicles. Stone throwing broke a window of the Saint-Exupéry school and a dozen garbage cans were burned.
In Toulouse
In Toulouse, episodes of violence have affected the districts of La Reynerie and Bagatelle au Mirail, but also, and this is new, the district of Izards. The police forces, supported by the Raid and the GIGN, proceeded according to the prefecture to 11 arrests. There are seven burnt vehicles and a crane at La Reynerie. The balance of the night? 27 arrests, 18 cars and two buses burned, two semi-trailers and a van. A police officer was slightly injured.
In Marseille
In the city center of Marseille, it is the storefront of the municipal library of the Alcazar which was damaged. A short distance away, on the Old Port, scuffles pitted the police against a group of 100 to 150 people who allegedly tried to set up barricades.
In Brittany
Even if the violence was less than elsewhere, the Breton cities were also the scene of riots in the night from Thursday to Friday. It was in Brest that the tensions were the strongest. After a very turbulent first night in the Europe district on Wednesday evening, the violence this time took place in the city center. Coming from different parts of the city, gangs of young people demolished bus shelters and street furniture, set fire to garbage cans and looted a Jott store. Sub-prefect Jean-Philippe Setbon described “a lot of clashes between police and small, very mobile groups”.
In Rennes, the violence was concentrated in the Blosne district, in the south of the city, with clashes between the police and gangs of young people with tear gas and fireworks mortars. A construction machine was also stolen and used to destroy a lamppost.
Finally, in Saint-Brieuc, the MJC du Plateau was partly destroyed by fire. During an intervention, a firefighter was also injured by a broken bottle.
In the Lyon region and in Grenoble
In Lyon and Grenoble, public transport was still disrupted on Friday morning, according to information obtained from the TCL and M’Tag networks. The drivers asserted their right of withdrawal in Grenoble after “mortar fire” on Thursday evening, according to M’Tag. Traffic on two bus lines remains “disrupted” on Friday until further notice, according to its website.
The first tensions began in the early evening in eastern Lyon. In Vénissieux, a tram was stoned and had to be abandoned after an attempted fire and in Bron, a bus burned “by a small group”, Jean-Charles Kohlhaas, vice-president of the metropolis, told AFP. in charge of travel. Images of the burned bus quickly circulated on social networks. In Vaulx-en-Velin, the municipal police station was degraded, in Rilleux-la-Pape, a crèche and a media library also suffered damage, according to the prefecture which reports 12 arrests and 43 minor injuries in the ranks of law enforcement. Tensions erupted in particular in the 8th arrondissement of Lyon where the Raid was dispatched, according to a police source.
In Annecy
The firefighters also intervened all evening and part of the night to put out “garbage can and street furniture fires” in Annecy, Haute-Savoie, they told AFP. Tensions appeared in the Teppes district, according to images from the regional daily The Liberated Dauphine showing a group of people trying to break into a mall.
And elsewhere too
In Saône-et-Loire, Mâcon, Le Creusot, Montceau-les-Mines and Chalon-sur-Saône saw “clashes between law enforcement and troublemakers, who set fire to garbage cans and vehicles,” the prefecture said in a statement. “Public establishments have been targeted”, in particular a nursery school in Mâcon and the town hall of Sanvignes-les-Mines”, a town of 4,000 inhabitants, according to the same source. In Isère, fires notably targeted a municipal police office in Villefontaine, a schoolyard in Bourgoin-Jallieu and a performance hall in Fontaine, according to firefighters. Saint-Etienne and Clermont-Ferrand also experienced a night marked by incidents, with fireworks, trash fires, and burnt cars, according to the local press.