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The image is circulating a lot on social networks.
It is the source of many comments that are often hostile to the police.
Saturday afternoon, during a new demonstration against the pension reform, at the initiative of the local inter-union, the situation sometimes degenerated in Nantes.
Trash fires, throwing projectiles at the police: as sometimes happens during Nantes processions since the start of the mobilization against the government's project, sporadic clashes have taken place.
Eight people were also arrested.
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New fact, however, a barricade made up of garbage cans and construction grids was erected at one point at the crossroads of the trams in the city center.
This blocked the passage of cars.
Except for the emergency vehicles for which the demonstrators present opened the way.
It is in this context that a scene makes a lot of talk.
After the passage of a fire truck, a
"non-screen printed"
car , equipped with a blue revolving light, found itself blocked by the demonstrators.
Shortly after, the driver on board decided to force the passage to make his way.
Twenty-four hours after the events, the course of the scene is now better known.
"Avoid a tragedy"
The Loire-Atlantique gendarmerie group, since it is he who is involved in this story and not the national police as it had been mentioned by some at the beginning, decided to clarify things with Le Figaro and give his version of the
facts
. .
They were in fact soldiers escorting the firefighters.
“Shortly before, members of the Surveillance and Intervention Platoon
of the National Gendarmerie
(Psig)
had arrested a dangerous individual in Treillières
[a town 20km north of Nantes, editor’s note].
The latter, who could not be placed in police custody, had to be taken to the Nantes University Hospital for compulsory hospitalization.
The individual being recalcitrant, the firefighters asked the gendarmes for an escort.
One of them was also present in the rescue truck
, ”says the department's gendarmerie group.
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If the firefighters were able to pass the barricade, this was not the case of the gendarmes' vehicle in which were three soldiers.
“They were surrounded.
The vehicle was jostled and the target of projectiles.
Right next to it, there was furniture on fire.
Faced with this unacceptable situation, they decided to leave quickly to avoid a tragedy
, "says the gendarmerie group, which draws a parallel with previous attacks in France during which vehicles and even police were burned, such as this had been the case in Viry-Châtillon in October 2016.
An open investigation
If the gendarmes' vehicle was damaged by the demonstrators, the personnel on board were not physically injured.
“On the other hand, they are psychologically injured.
They were very scared, feared for their health and that their car was set on fire”
, specifies the same source.
His colleagues would therefore have decided
to “accelerate and escape”,
a maneuver during which they boarded, in their path, some of the piled up barriers and brushed against several demonstrators.
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This scene will be the subject of an investigation by the Nantes prosecutor's office.
She will have to try to determine who were the individuals who attacked the soldiers.
The alleged motives are those of violence against a person holding public authority and degradation.
