Until the arrival on the place de Bretagne, everything had gone well. Despite a declining mobilization, several thousand people marched calmly through the streets of Rennes, sometimes showered by typical Breton rain. The unions had counted 20,000 people, the prefecture preferring the figure of 8,500 demonstrators for this new mobilization against the pension reform. The situation deteriorated significantly when several hundred people took the path to the old center, lighting garbage can fires as they passed.
Opposite, the police responded, sometimes with force, as when they gassed hundreds of people nasse not far from the old Arvor cinema. “We couldn’t see anything, we couldn’t breathe, it was panic,” says a protester, who took refuge in a shop. Several people felt unwell and were taken care of by street medics after this strange intervention by the police.
Pushed back by the police, a few hundred people were in Place Hoche, where there is a U supermarket. This is where the store’s employees witnessed the looting of their fresh food department. “There were three or four of them blocking the doors and they were shouting ‘Help yourself, it’s free!’ They were around thirty, they did not go far in the store but they helped themselves, ”says an employee.
“It only lasted a few minutes”
Sandwiches, salads and drinks were stolen from fridges installed at the entrance to the store. Outside, two tags “self-reduction” and “looting everywhere” have been written on the facade of the sign. “There is not too much damage. And no one was injured, that’s the main thing, ”said the manager of the U Express store.
The supermarket employees were jostled and heckled by some demonstrators. “It only lasted a few minutes. We managed to get them to leave. They told us that our boss was super rich but that we were earning a pittance, ”continues a supermarket employee. The demonstrators finally returned to the square before dispersing. According to a report from the prefecture, five people were arrested. Two clothing stores (Crazy Republic and K-Way) have already been the targets of looting since the start of the mobilization against the pension reform in Rennes.