The boards that barricaded businesses were removed and the cloud of tear gas that drowned the city dissipated. In Rennes, calm has returned since this summer. Numerous tags, hostile to the police or full of humor, however, serve as a reminder that the Breton capital was the scene in the spring of violent clashes and scenes of chaos on the sidelines of demonstrations against pension reform. Like this day of March 15, the day before the triggering of 49.3 by the Prime Minister. After a new round of mobilization in the street, a group of around a hundred masked individuals led a savage action against the Mama Shelter, a luxury hotel which had opened its doors ten days earlier on Place des Lices.
The attack barely lasted three minutes but was very violent. Two security agents who protected the entrance to the establishment had suffered a deluge of projectiles, targeted by thrown chairs and paving stones before being hit by several individuals. One of the security guards had received two hammer blows to the head while his colleague had been injured in the ear by a machete-type blade, which required eleven stitches. “They were coming to massacre us, I feared for our lives,” one of the security guards told investigators. In the heat of the moment, the demonstrators immediately ransacked the Hôtel des Lices as well as a real estate agency.
The Collective Defense group at the heart of the debates
After the violence committed at the Mama Shelter, a student in his twenties was sentenced in mid-May to ten months in prison, five of which were suspended. This Thursday afternoon, three other defendants appeared in this case before the Rennes criminal court, a young man born female aged 23 and twins of the same age. During the searches, all the paraphernalia of the black bloc (gloves, masks, diving goggles, etc.) had been discovered in their homes as well as various leaflets calling for resistance or sabotage or on the instructions to be adopted in police custody.
So many elements testify, according to the president of the court, to their belonging to the Défense Collective, an ultra-left Rennes collective once threatened with dissolution by Gérald Darmanin. During the hearing, there was also a lot of talk about this famous DefCo group, accused by the Minister of the Interior of calling for “an uprising” and leading violent actions in the Breton capital. “This is not the DefCo trial,” recalled the prosecutor. But this entity advocates a mode of action that we find in this issue, namely violence and destruction. »
“A festive invasion” of the Mama Shelter
On the stand, the twins kept repeating that they had nothing to do with this violence for the simple reason that they were “not both present at this demonstration. » By going through photos and videos captured by video surveillance cameras, the investigators managed to identify them. “But the quality of the photos is doubtful,” quipped one of the brothers.
The third defendant, however, did not deny his participation in the demonstration. Engaged in the social movement, he basically wanted to participate in “a festive invasion” of the Mama Shelter. “We had planned to distribute leaflets in the hall to denounce the rise in rents,” he explained. “But as soon as I saw that the security guard was carrying a machete, I immediately left the scene,” he added, assuring that he had not “attended or participated” in the damage and violence.
“A case put together in reverse”, according to the lawyer of one of the defendants
According to his lawyer Maître Pacheu, no witness has formally recognized his client. “In this case, we cannot be satisfied with the investigators’ assertions,” he argued. His colleague Maître Caro, lawyer for one of the two brothers, denounced “a case put together in reverse” in which “we no longer know who does what between the two brothers. »
At the end of the hearing, the main defendant was found guilty of violence and damage and sentenced to two years in prison. He will also have to compensate the Hôtel des Lices as well as the real estate agency to the tune of approximately 30,000 euros and is banned from demonstrating for three years. The two brothers received a suspended prison sentence of eighteen months.