Le Figaro Bordeaux
Senegal is under tension in the run-up to its presidential election on February 24, and this is felt even in Gironde lands. On Thursday, shortly after the announcement of the conviction in absentia of Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison for "corruption of youth", the Senegalese consulate in Bordeaux was invaded.
According to our police sources, about fifty demonstrators, supporting the opponent of the regime of Macky Sall, expressed their dissatisfaction. If their candidate was acquitted of the charges of rape and death threats against him, this court decision makes him ineligible for 2024. And some of these protesters made their way to the office of Consul Abdoulaye Diallo to make themselves heard. Unusually in the world of diplomacy, the latter asked the French national police to intervene.
A complaint filed
Requested at 15:54 p.m., the internal security forces positioned in Bordeaux persuaded about forty demonstrators to leave by their simple arrival. The remaining ten, mobilized on the ground floor of the consulate, finally evacuated the premises smoothly. Only one degradation was committed: the portrait of the outgoing president, hanging in the consul's office, was torn off.
The perpetrator of this action was arrested and questioned in police custody the same evening. A dozen of his compatriots had gathered in front of the police station, without causing any disturbance to public order, to show his support. They left when he was released. The Senegalese consul filed a complaint against this man for his gesture and this deterioration. In Dakar and Ziguinchor, nine people died in the violence that erupted after the conviction of Ousmane Sonko.