Whenever sunny weather returns, it's the same catchphrase. Rodeos in motocross, minimotos and other quads resume, in defiance of the safety rules and the ears of the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods, but also of the countryside. And from La Verrière to Mantes-la-Jolie, via Chanteloup-les-Vignes, confinement does not seem to have changed this trend.
Without license plates, lighting and noisy due to a free exhaust, these machines are however theoretically prohibited on the road. Worse still: "most of the cross motorcycles we control are stolen," said a police officer.
"For the young people of the city, it is a game. They measure themselves against the one who will make the most beautiful rear wheel, without thinking of the danger", denounces the delegate of the police union SGP Unit William Blanchet.
Aware of this phenomenon, Catherine Arenou, the mayor (DVD) of Chanteloup-les-Vignes, admits her helplessness. "It's unbearable," she concedes. Especially since the city is empty at the moment, and there is no other noise. The acceptance threshold is different for families confined with several children in an apartment for more than a month. Several interior ministers have been arrested on this subject. If someone had found the solution to the problem, they would have received the Nobel Peace Prize long ago! "
"The locals are fed up, much more than usual"
In his commune, incidents related to this practice have multiplied since confinement. On April 5, a man who recognized his stolen motorcycle during an urban Noé rodeo session called the police. The driver's arrest had degenerated into clashes with the police and the injury of a 5-year-old child hit by a police projectile. The officials had seized in the wake of stolen motorcycles hidden in the cellars of the city.
The first victims of these nuisances are the inhabitants of the districts concerned. Some do not hesitate to strongly dissuade the bikers but the majority suffers by making the round back. " We can not do anything ! Motocross is everywhere. Now, they come out as soon as the weather is fine, even in winter, deplores a forty-something man from Val-Fourré, in Mantes-la-Jolie. But this year, with Ramadan and confinement, the inhabitants are fed up, much more than usual. "
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"It is not because these phenomena are repeated that the Versailles prosecutor's office gives up, insists the Versailles prosecutor, Maryvonne Caillibotte. We are continuing and will continue to prosecute the perpetrators of rodeo, theft or stolen motorcycles. "
Already 13 procedures since the start of the year
Police and magistrates rely on the anti-rodeo law of March 2018 which allows to impose up to a year of imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 euros for offenders. Motorcycles are seized, which the owner can recover if he pays the custody fees at the pound.
Last year, the Yvelines police officers carried out 45 procedures in this area. They have already reached 13 since the start of 2020, including 9 in the constituency of Elancourt.
Just last weekend, an 18-year-old young man was arrested in Meulan-en-Yvelines, while riding a rodeo on a reported stolen vehicle. "The police method consists of setting up a cocktail of actions combining punch operations, judicial inquiries and prevention operations carried out with cities and social landlords," explains Commissioner Alexandre Bonneville.
In some sensitive places, billboards warn that this practice is prohibited. This also involves the construction of facilities intended to hinder or prevent bikers from passing. The police rely mainly on video surveillance which sometimes makes it possible to identify the perpetrators, the places they frequent and those where they store their devices.
The campaign is not spared. Since the start of confinement, the gendarmes have verbalized around fifty motocross enthusiasts in the fields of Yvelines.
Repeated burglaries in specialized garages
Some thieves take advantage of it, engaging in juicy traffic. They target cross motorcycles which are worth between 5,000 and 8,000 euros for a 125 to 450 cm3, or Enduro, approved for road use, on average 2,000 to 3,000 € more expensive, crisscrossing the streets in vans, sometimes equipped with rails. to quickly load the two-wheeled vehicle identified.
"They even push their locations as far as rural areas to pick them up in the neighboring departments," assures a good connoisseur of this file. They also find their victims on Internet advertising sites.
A team even seems to have specialized in the burglary of establishments that store the objects seized by the police. During the night of Saturday April 25 to Sunday April 26, a well-known convenience store in Plaisir suffered an attempted theft. The triggering of the alarm and the intervention of the police put a dozen criminals on the run who were pushing cross motorcycles towards a van. Only the driver of the vehicle, 23 years old and domiciled in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, was arrested.
It is the third establishment of this type targeted by thieves in a few days. Eight vehicles, some of which had been seized shortly before in Chanteloup-les-Vignes, were stolen from a garage in Morainvilliers. Another convenience store, located in Achères, was also the target of burglars.
An 18-year-old suspect, domiciled in Chanteloup, was charged before being imprisoned. “This case is going on. It still remains to be determined, whether it is a question of having fun with motorcycles or of making a trade of them "specifies the prosecutor of Versailles, exasperated by" this feeling of impunity. "Motorcycles are seized, they rob the garage and return there the next day ...", annoys Maryvonne Caillibotte.
"The kids know very well that the police can do nothing against them, so they take advantage of it as long as they can," says a father from Val-Fourré, who admits having already driven these devices in his youth. “But in the neighborhood, people say that the same nuisances, in the city center of Mantes-la-Jolie, would be repressed much faster. They feel that they are not being considered. In Paris, they make noise checks on the pots of motorcycles. Why not here ? "