Tears, sadness and immense shock. Friday morning, the inhabitants of Montargis discovered, once daybreak, a devastated city center, shops looted rue Dorée and around, broken windows, burnt cars, buildings still smoking, threatening to collapse. Millions of euros in damage and a disaster for downtown merchants, some of whom saw their work tool go up in smoke.
Degradation also noted in the small town of Malesherbois, in the north of Loiret
A thrown molotov cocktail inside a shop
In the early morning, in front of the Alexander’s clothing store, “one of the most beautiful in the city center” with its old wooden storefront, totally destroyed by the flames like the upper floors of the building, a woman cannot hold back her tears. A few steps away, a couple, flabbergasted: “Yes, we want to cry”, confirms the woman. “What are we waiting for to put in place a curfew and send in the army?” asks her husband, revolted by the violence of last night.
A resident of the rue du Bon-Guillaume, nearby, testifies to him of these hundreds of people, very young, whom he saw surging on the city center and breaking everything. Rue du Général-Leclerc, where a building was totally destroyed by the flames and one of the occupants transported to the hospital center of the Montargo area, a woman evokes the molotov cocktail thrown inside the store, at the ground floor. In front of her business, which was however not in the crosshairs of the thugs, a woman cries hot tears, as if lost.
Angry after the destruction of the night, the mayor of Montargis Benoit Digeon (LR) asks for help from the State
Remnants of a fury
A few dozen meters away, the town hall of Montargis was also targeted. The doors and windows on the ground floor were smashed. In the streets of the city center, vehicles with broken windows testify to the fury of the past hours…
“How can we come to this… I ask the parents of these young people!”, protests a man in his fifties who, like dozens of onlookers, witnessed the fight of the firefighters to circumscribe the fire that devastated the building of the Mirabeau pharmacy, looted and set on fire during the night.
Antibes area evacuated following rumors of attacks
All morning, companies have been busy securing the businesses targeted, while municipal officials and cleaning companies have done their best to remove debris from the road.
From the early hours of the morning, on social networks, rumbled the threats of new attacks, targeted, on the Montargoise agglomeration and more particularly on the commercial area of Antibes, in Amilly.
At the beginning of the afternoon, the Leclerc center evacuated customers and staff, followed by the other brands in the sector and the large surfaces of the agglomeration which lowered the curtain. The Montargis court also asked those present to leave the premises, as some schools called the parents to come and pick up the children.
The day after a night of looting and looting in the Loiret, the inhabitants of Montargis in shock
Social media rumors
Social networks, always, which throughout the day have conveyed the craziest rumours. “Is it true that there are two dead in the fires last night?” Asked a young man in the street. The rumors of fires and attacks in car dealerships, at the Amilly bowling alley or elsewhere, have also circulated widely, contributing to further accentuate the anxiety of the inhabitants of the agglomeration and to encourage the cancellation of certain demonstrations.
“There have been two recent disasters in Montargis: the floods of 2016 and June 30, 2023. Except that natural disasters, we can only accept and remain philosophical; disasters caused by man are not acceptable”, declared a Montargois. All hope, this Friday evening, an evening without violence.
Pascale Auditeau