Traffic control has escalated
Paris police shoot dead two car occupants
4/25/2022 3:31 am
A driver on the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris tries to ram the police with his car when they want to stop him. The officers then close him and two other inmates – only one of them survived.
The police in Paris shot dead two occupants of a car that is said to have raced towards the officers during a check. As the newspaper “Le Parisien” and the broadcaster BFMTV reported, citing information from the police, the officers wanted to check the car on the Pont Neuf bridge in the city center on Sunday evening because it was driving in the wrong direction. When the car ignored the stop signs and headed straight for the police officers, they opened fire.
A third occupant is said to have been injured, according to police information. As the newspaper “Le Figaro” reported, the car was initially parked in the opposite direction of travel near the bridge when the officers wanted to check the occupants and pointed their automatic weapons at the car. The driver then accelerated the car in the direction of the police officers, who immediately fired.
The area has been cordoned off. The special unit for checking the actions of the officials (IGPN), the “police of the police”, was turned on. A connection with the presidential election, which ended on Sunday evening, was initially not apparent. The site of the check was several kilometers from the area around the Eiffel Tower, where re-elected President Emmanuel Macron celebrated his victory.
“Yellow vests” protested in Lyon
Nevertheless, after the outcome of the presidential election on Sunday evening, there were protests, some of them violent, in several cities. In Lyon, there were clashes between left-wing groups, “yellow vest” demonstrators and the police, as reported by broadcaster BFMTV. First, the demonstrators shot at the municipal police with firecrackers, as could also be seen on video images. Later, the National Police intervened to stop the riots.
In Paris, too, demonstrators gathered in several places in the evenings, which neither the winner Macron nor his defeated competitor Marine Le Pen considered a sensible choice, as the newspaper “Le Parisien” reported. There was initially no talk of any significant riots in the capital. In Rennes, western France, where left-wing groups rioted and protests against the extreme right broke out after the first round of elections, the prefecture banned a demonstration on Sunday evening. Renewed damage to property and attacks on the police should be prevented.