The door of a police station and that of a convention center were set on fire Friday evening in the center of Rennes during a demonstration against the decision of the Constitutional Council which validated the main part of the pension reform, journalists noted. from AFP.
The empty police station was set on fire using, among other things, burning garbage cans.
The flames were extinguished after a few minutes after the intervention of a police water cannon.
Voluntary fires
A few minutes later, shortly before 10 p.m., the demonstrators set fire to the door of the Couvent des Jacobins, a former religious building converted into a congress center on Place Sainte-Anne, in the city center.
The start of the fire was also brought under control quickly with the intervention of the water cannon.
These outbursts occurred during a demonstration of several hundred demonstrators, mostly young and very mobile, who left Place Sainte-Anne shortly after 8 p.m.
Place where the fire at the door of the Couvent des Jacobins took place.
Screenshot Google Maps
Another demonstration, part two hours earlier at the call of the inter-union, had taken place in calm and in a good-natured atmosphere.
“
The damage and attacks this evening in Rennes against a police station and the Couvent des Jacobins, by thugs determined to fight it out, are unacceptable
”, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin immediately reacted on Twitter.
"
The perpetrators will be prosecuted
."
Several storefronts in the historic center and a Caisse d'Epargne agency were also damaged in the evening.
Many trash cans were set on fire and the police came under fire from projectiles.
A few dozen demonstrators were still gathered in Place Sainte-Anne around 11 p.m. but calm seemed to have returned, according to these journalists.
“
I have brought together the deputies and competent services in the crisis unit
”, tweeted the mayor of Rennes Nathalie Appéré.
“
We are alongside the inhabitants, traders and institutions who suffer these abuses
”.
Read also Pensions Act, RIP: what does the decision of the Constitutional Council reveal?
According to the Ministry of the Interior, CRS 8, a company based in Bièvres (Essonne) and specializing in urban violence, will be sent back to Rennes on Saturday and will remain there all weekend.
A new demonstration against the pension reform is planned for Saturday afternoon in the Breton capital.
The center of Rennes has been regularly the scene of numerous violence between the police and demonstrators, accompanied by damage to shops or street furniture, since the start of the movement against pension reform.