“The government is deploying the “Centaur” armored vehicles and its 7.62 mm machine gun.” These are the kind of statements that can be found online, as the farmers’ movement heads this Tuesday towards the Rungis national interest market (Val-de-Marne). According to these articles and publications on social networks, the gendarmerie have released their new armored vehicles, nicknamed “Centaur”, and equipped with machine guns. These publications are often based on real images showing armored vehicles deployed at Rungis.
This is particularly the case of Florian Philippot, who declared on ! “, In a publication viewed nearly 300,000 times.
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There are many gendarmerie armored vehicles in Rungis in anticipation of the arrival of the farmers’ convoy, but they are not equipped with machine guns. “Two VBRG [véhicule blindé à roues de la gendarmerie] were deployed since this morning. They must be replaced during the day by two Centaurs,” explained the national gendarmerie to 20 minutes Monday at the end of the day. “On a law enforcement mission, they are never equipped with machine guns,” specifies the gendarmerie. Machine guns are equipped “only during external operations”.
In a article from Politis dated October 2023 relating the presentation to the press of the new armored vehicle, we learn that “the machine gun is covered, unarmed and its barrel is even removed to make it inoperable, during missions where it is not necessary, as in preserve the order “.
The images filmed by the journalist Clément Lanot, reproduced in numerous publications, therefore do not show the famous “Centaure” armored vehicles, but Berliet VXB 170s (another name for VBRG), used since the 1970s by the French gendarmerie (which nor were they equipped with machine guns).
Heavier and more modern, the “Centaure” multi-purpose gendarmerie intervention vehicles (VIPG) are the successors to the VBRG, deployed in France from 2021, and should gradually replace them, as 20 minutes explained it in a previous article.
The police vehicles had already been the subject of false information, notably during the clashes with the police after Nahel’s death and during the “yellow vest” demonstrations.