Le Figaro Nantes
In the space of three days (from 21 to 23 August), the roads of Loire-Atlantique were the scene of three refusals to comply. Among these cases, an "incredible" story: a driver, very alcoholic, did not hesitate to steal the van of a convenience store and then a gendarme's car in a desperate attempt to flee between Rennes and Nantes. The climax of a turbulent summer season on the roads of this department with 133 kilometers of coastline.
On Wednesday, the prefecture communicated the "balance sheet of the actions of the services of the State" during the months of July and August. The salient point is clearly that of traffic offences. During the 1480 roadside checks carried out, a total of 10,676 offences were recorded, including speeding, drunk driving or drug-driving. Divided by 62 days, this gives a daily average of over 170!
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Motorist flashed at 191 km/h
The six CRS motorcyclists deployed on the department - mainly on the coast - alone recorded 413 violations. On the speeding side, a young 22-year-old driver sadly distinguished himself, on July 10, in the town of La Baule by being flashed at 191 km / h on a portion limited to 110 km / h. To denounce this risk-taking, the police of Loire-Atlantique - via its account X (formerly Twitter) - had recalled that the road is not "an F1 track".
Also on the roads, agents of the Regional Directorate of the Environment, Planning and Housing (DREAL) of the Pays de la Loire checked 275 goods or passenger vehicles. "50 vehicles were the subject of fines with findings of violations of the various regulations applicable to transport (overloads, technical road control, dangerous goods)," says the prefecture in its numerical report.
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35 drownings
On the water, the members of the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS) have not been idle either. They carried out 92 nautical interventions, in particular to help boaters. Nearly a third of their activity was devoted to the 35 drownings recorded (at sea, in swimming pools, ponds or rivers). The CRS swimmers rescuers, in seasonal reinforcement in La Baule, Pornichet and Pouliguen, carried out 66 interventions including 25 rescues at sea for a total of 29 people saved.
As regards bathing water quality, 671 samples were taken. 109 reports concerned anomalies rendering water quality insufficient to poor. At the end of July, three beaches in Saint-Nazaire and one in Pornichet were closed for four days following a discharge of wastewater into the stormwater network after heavy rainfall.
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54 traffickers implicated
In parallel with the management of the tourist influx, the State services highlight the constant action taken against drug trafficking. During the summer, the police issued 518 fixed criminal fines - amounting to between 150 and 200 euros - and "54 traffickers" were implicated. A couple who earned "more than 2000 euros per week" by selling cocaine, crack or MDMA (the active ingredient of ecstasy) was arrested in Pornic on August 21.
The city of Nantes, often singled out for the settling of scores that such an illegal market generates, is the subject of a special box in the prefecture's figures. In it, it is indicated that half a company of CRS was deployed as reinforcement and carried out 2393 checks and issued 48 fixed fines for offences, "including 18 for drug use". Partial figures that give only a limited view of the reality for which no recent data have been released. As Le Figaro explained recently, since January 2023, the prefecture of Loire-Atlantique has stopped disseminating crime figures in Nantes.