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May 1 demonstrations: a day of intense confrontations with the police

2023-05-01T18:20:48.653Z


STORY – Police unions are concerned about the next movement scheduled for May 3. The services of France's first cop Gérald Darmanin feared a "historic and vengeful May Day"; trouble was there from the start. Intense hotbed of far-left protest, Nantes and its 17,500 demonstrators, according to the police, got the ball rolling. The thugs immediately sought to do battle with the police, setting fire to several luxury vehicles on the public highway. Result: twenty injured among th


The services of France's first cop Gérald Darmanin feared a

"historic and vengeful May Day"

;

trouble was there from the start.

Intense hotbed of far-left protest, Nantes and its 17,500 demonstrators, according to the police, got the ball rolling.

The thugs immediately sought to do battle with the police, setting fire to several luxury vehicles on the public highway.

Result: twenty injured among the police and as many arrests.

The forecast of 500,000 to 650,000 people beating the pavement in France, including 80,000 to 100,000 in Paris, has been exceeded, with 782,000 demonstrators according to the Ministry of the Interior, including 112,000 in the capital.

To channel the crowd and stem the excesses, 12,000 police and gendarmes had been mobilized, including 5,000 in Paris.

They carried out more than 200 arrests and a dozen of them were hospitalized.

In the capital, the prefect of police, Laurent Nunez, expected a nebula of 3,000 to 6,000 radical elements.

"They will have the reinforcement of activists from all over Europe,"

he warned.

In fact, the tensions were immediate.

The intelligence service of the capital feared that young people from sensitive neighborhoods would join in the violent actions.

Even before the start of the demonstration around 2 p.m., 2,740 checks had been carried out, to detect any reported activists and to seize any object or weapon transported.

Read alsoMay 1: images of violence and degradation throughout France

Everyone, at the Paris police headquarters, remembered the scuffles of a previous chaotic May Day in the capital, in 2018, under Gérard Collomb.

A day marked by considerable damage to street furniture and businesses, not to mention the many police officers and gendarmes injured.

Fierce resistance to law enforcement

This time again, the hooded ultras were at the head of the procession, seeking to form black blocks to harass the police.

The police intervened tirelessly to break up these hostile groups.

The motorized personnel of the Brav-M swooped down on their objectives whenever they could, under the supervision of the drones used for the first time in this context.

Read alsoBetween dream of “big night” and hatred of “cops”, journey to the heart of a “black-block”

Place de la Nation, shortly before 5 p.m., the ultras still managed to gather in compact blocks, opposing fierce resistance to the police.

A real pitched battle with the appearance of a convergence of struggles, where violent anarchists, radicalized "yellow vests" and all types of rebels, steeped in hatred for the police, mingled.

Around


70 arrests had been made at the end of the afternoon.

The mobile police and gendarmes came under projectile throwing, firework mortar fire, multiple blows.

A policeman was seriously burned by the explosion of a Molotov cocktail.

Images that made the rounds of the news channels continuously.

The virulence of some attackers seemed limitless.

On May 3, the Constitutional Council will decide on a new request for a shared initiative referendum on pension reform

In Lyon, where more than 17,000 people marched, the police headquarters welcomed a double arrest

"thanks to the use of a drone"

which would have made it possible to identify two

"radical elements"

who

"wanted to attack at the town hall of the 7th arrondissement

.

But the abuses were significant in town, with businesses degraded or looted, cars burned.

The prefecture spoke of around 2,000 hostile individuals, including a thousand thugs organized into black blocks.

Read alsoMay Day protests: why the use of drones is causing legal debate

In Toulouse, the police had to use a water cannon to repel 200 ultras, making about twenty arrests and deploring a dozen injured, half of them in their ranks.

In Bordeaux too, it was necessary to deal with wild wanderings and make arrests, after the damage observed.

The prefecture counted 12,000 demonstrators, as many as in Rennes or Marseille.

In Clermont-Ferrand, they were 14,000 to parade, according to the authorities.

This thirteenth day of mobilization against the pension reform was intense.

Beauvau expected at the end of the day a heavy toll in terms of injuries in the ranks of the police.

The police unions are worried about the next movement scheduled for May 3, the day when the Constitutional Council will decide on a new request for a shared initiative referendum on pension reform.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-05-01

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