The huge illegal party that in the middle of the pandemic began on Thursday night in western France to celebrate the New Year was interrupted on Saturday morning, and revelers, many of them fined, left the place, local authorities reported .
“There was no police intervention,” stressed the prefecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine department (western France), and specified that the gendarmes who control the access roads to the site of the mega-party, which was attended by around 2,500 people, simultaneously carried out control operations and the imposition of fines.
The prefecture mentioned a “sound interruption” and the dismantling of at least one sound tower, during the night of Friday to Saturday, which had been broadcasting techno since Thursday night in two hangars turned into a nightclub in Lieuron, south of the city of Rennes (west). And this despite the fact that France had decreed a “New Year’s Eve of December 31” under a curfew due to the threat of a covid-19 outbreak in the country.
“The internal security forces, numerous tonight at my request, and the intensive controls put in place led to the cessation of the illegal party in Lieuron, without violence. We continue the controls, and each participant is fined when leaving the place” Gerald tweeted Darmanin, French Interior Minister.
More than 1,200 fines were imposed and a “truck, sound equipment and generators” were hijacked, Darmanin later noted.
The fines were applied for “non-compliance with the curfew, non-use of the mask and illegal participation in a demonstration,” according to the prefecture.
– Gendarmerie reinforcements –
The participants began to leave the venue at 05:30 local time (04:30 GMT), according to the same source. At 10:15 am (9:15 am GMT) on January 2, the site was “under police control.”
On Saturday morning, about half of the parking lot where revelers had left their vehicles was already empty, an AFP photographer found.
Later, the prefecture, Civil Protection and Techno +, an association that intervenes for the prevention of risks during these types of events, estimated at “a few hundred” the number of revelers who were still in the place on Saturday morning, despite that no consolidated figures are available.
Reinforcements from the gendarmerie continued to arrive at the scene on Saturday morning, said an AFP photographer, to gradually and calmly reinforce the security device around the party site.
Gérald Darmanin had called on Friday night in Paris a meeting on this party with the prefect and members of the cabinet. “I worked with them last night to restore a normal situation without altering the maximum physical integrity of all,” he wrote on his Twitter account.
On Thursday night, the gendarmes had tried in vain “to avoid that gathering and faced violent hostility from many of the revelers,” the Ille-et-Vilaine prefecture explained on Friday.
During these clashes “a gendarmerie vehicle was set on fire, another three were degraded and bottles and stones were thrown at the officers, causing minor injuries,” the prefecture said.
Unable to prevent the celebration of this mega-party, the prefecture deployed the gendarmes around the place and rescue teams arrived at the scene to distribute gel and masks.
The number of contaminations in France returned to around 20,000 in 24 hours on Friday, according to the national public health entity, which reported 133 new deaths, bringing the total to almost 64,800 fatalities.
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