VIDEO – Thirty-seven people were arrested in the evening of Saturday in Seine-Saint-Denis, after a demonstration in Bobigny in support of Théo L., violently arrested in Aulnay-sous-Bois last week.
Incidents broke out on the sidelines of a rally of several hundred demonstrators Saturday afternoon in Bobigny in support of Théo L., victim of an alleged rape during a brutal arrest on February 2. Gathered in front of the court of this city located north-east of Paris and supervised by a large number of police forces, these demonstrators – nearly 2,000 people according to the police headquarters – demanded “justice for Theo”. “The police rape”, “I am not a bamboula”, “the police kill innocent people”, one could read on the signs.
The situation became tense after an hour of demonstration, when police officers stationed on a walkway above the place of the rally received projectiles thrown by demonstrators.
Screams, firecrackers and crowd movements followed. Individuals attacked, in particular with kicks, the windows of a building and street furniture.
Burned vehicles, ripped off road signs
“Several hundred violent and very mobile individuals” have committed various “abuses and degradations”, wrote the Paris police headquarters (PP) in a press release this Saturday evening. In particular, several vehicles were set on fire. “Police forces had to intervene to rescue a young child in a burning vehicle,” said the prefecture. This version of the facts is contradicted by many witnesses, who affirm that it is young people who saved the child before handing him over to the police.
Sunday morning, we learn that 37 people were arrested in the evening in Seine-Saint-Denis. Vehicles and garbage cans were notably set on fire and businesses damaged by stone throwing in Drancy, Noisy-le-Sec or Bondy. A police officer was “very slightly injured” during these incidents.
Individuals also set fire to a pickup truck with the RTL logo. In a statement to AFP, the radio indicates that his team on the spot was “shocked but not injured” and “condemns this act of violence which endangered the life” of a journalist and a technician.
A little later, it was the truck of Europe 1 which was the target of projectiles.
“It’s an urban guerrilla war”
At around 8 p.m., the situation was still very confused. The police tried to push back isolated demonstrators, with tear gas. On images broadcast online on Periscope, we saw individuals overturning a trash can and setting rubbish on fire. Nearby, another person threw a street sign to obstruct the road while others tore off road signs. Traffic also seemed difficult at the roundabout on avenue Pierre Semard. Equipped with iron bars, some individuals sent projectiles in the direction of the police, about 300 meters from the town hall of Bobigny.
In addition, much damage was visible at the Bobigny bus station. “It’s an urban guerrilla war,” a police source commented on Saturday evening. “There are no more demonstrators, it is only thugs who act”. How many are they? “Can’t tell you. They are mobile groups so it is difficult to quantify ”.
“How can you say it’s an accident?”
A few hours earlier, the rally was going smoothly. “I do not understand. I did not think that it could still exist, “Anissa, 18, told AFP, referring to the case of the arrest of Théo L.” How can we say that it is an accident? I do not consider these men to be police officers, ”added the young girl from the nearby town of Blanc-Mesnil (Seine-Saint-Denis). The demonstrators chanted slogans denouncing police violence, also referring to Zyed and Bouna, the two teenagers who died in an electrical transformer at the origin of the riots in the suburbs in 2005, or Adama Traoré, who died during his arrest last summer in Val-d’Oise.
Still hospitalized, the 22-year-old young man recounted being the victim on February 2 of a rape with a telescopic baton during a violent arrest at the 3000, a city of Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis ). One of the four police officers who carried out the arrest was indicted for rape and the other three for violence. In the night from Friday to Saturday, eight people were arrested for urban violence in Seine-Saint-Denis, against 25 the previous night.
Eventful event in Rouen
Other gatherings took place in France. In Rouen, some 200 people demonstrated in a tense atmosphere. Bus shelters have been degraded, garbage cans set on fire and a gendarmerie barracks degraded, according to the prefecture, citing “two arrests for crowd”. On the other hand, it is in the calm that 250 people gathered in Toulouse behind a banner “We are not game for cops. Our neighborhoods are not shooting stands ”. No incident Nantes, where more than 300 people marched to cries of “Everyone hates the police”. Just like in Caen (90 demonstrators).
(With AFP)
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