Eight people including four dockers were arrested and a judicial investigation was opened following the mutilation of a police officer during a demonstration in Le Havre in January, AFP learned on Monday November 23 from corroborating sources.
To read also: "I always feel like a target": the trauma of the police victims of attacks
“
A judicial investigation is in progress in particular for voluntary violence on depositary of the public authority and degradations.
Arrests took place today,
”Rouen prosecutor Pascal Prache told an AFP correspondent on Monday.
According to a Le Havre police source, eight people were arrested, "
all in the CGT movement
", including four dockers.
According to this same source, judicial information is open in Rouen in particular for "
violence on a person holding public authority followed by mutilation or permanent disability
".
Finger torn off
On January 15, a police commissioner had a finger torn off while he was protecting the chamber of commerce and industry of Le Havre during a rally against the pension reform.
A “
commissioner, present inside the CCI, received a firecracker, agricultural bomb type, on the hand.
Our colleague is mutilated for life, he has lost two phalanges.
He also suffers from a fracture to the middle finger and thumb,
”then detailed to AFP Laurent Dugast, Alternative CFDT police unionist in Normandy.
According to him, a second commissioner had been "
thrown to the ground by the explosion
" and had suffered from tinnitus.
For Laurent Dugast, “
the projectiles were launched to injure or to kill.
We denounce the increase in violence by the CGT docker union in Le Havre
”.
To read also: In Champigny-sur-Marne, "we are trying to reach the police officer"
The secretary of the CGT dockers union in Le Havre, Johann Fortier, had declared: “
We are sorry that there is someone injured but we have nothing to do with it.
It's an accident.
There was no intention in our country to hurt anyone with firecrackers
”.
“
It's a bit quick to blame dockworkers.
We are not thugs.
We are the most numerous so we are visible.
But there were hundreds of demonstrators,
”he continued.
On the evening of January 16 the Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner had, on Twitter, condemned "
without reservation the unspeakable act which seriously injured one of our national police commissioners in Le Havre
".
Édouard Philippe was then Prime Minister and municipal councilor of Le Havre.
He has since left Matignon and found his mayor's chair occupied from 2010 to 2017.
