Members of the Traveler community blocked a highway in the Ardennes on Tuesday, May 17 after the death of one of them, a teenager, in a road accident following a refusal to comply, according to the prefecture.
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The Sedan-Charleville motorway was blocked in both directions for several hours because of "
vehicles on fire
", writes the Ardennes prefecture in a press release.
The lights are now extinguished and the demonstrators have left the tracks, she said, stressing that the departmental operational center, a crisis management tool, had been activated.
Request for release
The demonstrators demanded the release of four members of their community arrested on the night of Sunday to Monday after the accident of their vehicle on the run, during which a fifth passenger, a 15-year-old teenager died.
The driver of the vehicle, aged 36, was to be presented in the evening to an investigating judge with a view to his indictment for manslaughter and involuntary injuries, the public prosecutor of Charleville told AFP. Mézières, Laurent de Caigny.
Car escape
The other three were released at the end of their police custody.
The five men, all from the same family - the teenager, his father, his uncle and two cousins - had been surprised during the night by the gendarmes in a municipal stadium in the town of Ayvelles.
They had fled by car, managing to shake off the gendarmes, who had found the damaged vehicle a little later.
The teenager died on the spot and two other passengers were slightly injured.
"
The gendarmerie soldiers did not chase and they did not see the accident
," insisted Laurent de Caigny.
The driver is known for petty crime.
He was not under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, according to the prosecutor.
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"
After verification, no trace of theft, break-in or attempted theft was found in the stadium
," he said.
The investigation was entrusted to the research brigade of the Rethel gendarmerie company.