Three CRS were placed in police custody on Wednesday May 5 in the investigation into violence in a Burger King in December 2018 on the sidelines of a demonstration of "
yellow vests
" in Paris, said a source close to the investigation, confirming information from RTL.
The three men are heard in the premises of the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN).
Read also: Violence in a Burger King in 2018: four CRS indicted
Four CRS had already been indicted in June 2020 for willful violence by a person holding public authority in this case appearing to be emblematic of the abuses observed in the maintenance of order in the face of the movement of "
yellow vests
". Two of them were also for voluntary violence with incapacity for work of less than eight days by a person holding public authority in a meeting and with a weapon.
On December 1, 2018, during Act III of the “
yellow vests
”, around thirty demonstrators and some journalists found refuge in a Burger King located near the Arc de Triomphe, at the end of a day of mobilization marked by numerous violence and clashes in this district of the capital. A dozen CRS, who arrived a few minutes later, entered and violently beat several demonstrators, some lying on the ground, with batons. The scene was filmed by several journalists.
This case had led to the opening of a preliminary investigation, entrusted to the IGPN. The investigations were then transmitted at the end of May 2019 to an investigating judge. In its report at the end of the preliminary investigation dated May 16, 2019 and consulted by AFP, the IGPN had recognized that violence, "
which did not seem justified
", had been committed during this intervention carried out by the first section of the 43rd Republican Security Company of Chalon-sur-Saône.
The IGPN cited in particular the case of Natan A., who had received 27 blows with a truncheon, carried by six police officers, before being able to leave the restaurant. But the police had at the time assured that they had not managed to identify all the officials involved, while on several videos given to investigators and posted online by some media, we could make out the faces of several police officers. In its report, the IGPN had insisted on the
general
“
context
” of the demonstration, evoking an “
insurrectional context of unprecedented chaos
”.