Yvelines: the war of the neighborhoods makes two wounded with a knife in Elancourt

The rivalry between neighborhoods makes new victims in the Yvelines. Two young men were injured in a knife brawl Monday night around 19 p.m. in the Petits-Prés sector of Elancourt. The first, aged 19, was seriously injured in the abdomen, his spleen was allegedly punctured. His condition is considered serious but his prognosis is not life-threatening. The second, 16, escaped with a superficial injury on his side.

"It's a settling of scores between young people from different neighborhoods," comments a source close to the file. They were treated in the parking lot of Carrefour Market, there was some tension on the spot but the emergency services were not attacked. Several individuals are believed to be behind the attack and are still actively sought.

An investigation was opened for attempted murder and entrusted to the urban security of Elancourt. "Some were armed with mortars, knives and other bladed weapons to fight. Several attackers were hooded or had concealed their faces," said one witness. The police found, abandoned next to the garbage cans of the rue de la Loire, bloody handkerchiefs, a knife or a tear gas canister.

"All sensitive neighbourhoods are competing"

This violence has occurred in a tense context in recent weeks. In the neighboring town of Trappes, it is with firearms that the settling of scores has followed one another recently, causing four wounded, including one seriously at the end of last week, a few days before a first attack causing one wounded, on May 29. Acts of unprecedented violence, often against a backdrop of drug trafficking.

" READ ALSO In Trappes, it is the third shooting in a month in the district of Merisiers

"All the sensitive districts are competing in Trappes, Élancourt, Maurepas, Coignières, La Verrière, Plaisir... Drug trafficking is growing and this is where wholesalers thrive, analyzes Jean-Michel Fourgous, mayor (LR) of Elancourt and president of the agglomeration of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. One deal point brings in up to 10,000 euros per day. For these sums they kill each other with knives, revolvers or Kalashnikovs. That worries us. »

Local police personnel work with the regular support of departmental and mobile brigades to try to curb the phenomenon. This type of aggression can quickly arouse desires for revenge in the opposing clan or neighborhood. A police source believes that "we will have to be vigilant in the coming days".