Le Figaro Lyon
The court wanted to show pedagogy, as ordered by the prosecutor's office. Five young men in their twenties, sometimes younger, were sentenced on Monday in Lyon for violence committed on a municipal police vehicle with two officers on board. The four defendants with no record received ten months in prison suspended and the obligation to compensate the police. The fifth, already convicted of similar offences, received a mixed sentence of four months and nine months suspended.
On January 19, as the first day of mobilization against the pension reform ended smoothly in Lyon, about twenty young people related to the anarchist movement left the Place Bellecour. Insulted by far-right activists, they want to wash away the affront and go to Old Lyon, bastion of several identitarian groups, "as a provocation", assure two of them at the bar of the court, nine months after the facts.
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'They would have lynched us'
They will finally take revenge on a municipal police car that returns to its post on Place Saint-Jean. The Berlingo is surrounded by individuals with concealed faces. The windows are tagged to limit the visibility of the officers while the vehicle is kicked in the body and punched in the windows, which will end up largely starry. A windshield wiper is torn off, a mirror broken. An anarchist tag is sown on the hood to the cry of "ACAB" (All cops are bastards) according to the testimony of the director of the municipal police inside the station.
Inside the two officials are terrified. "They wanted to get into the vehicle which was fortunately locked," says the officer at the wheel. He manages to maneuver to get out of the bee-eater without hurting anyone and flee with his colleague. Reinforcements arrive quickly putting the attackers to flight, some of whom will be found thanks to video surveillance. Five are tried for violence in assembly and not simple degradation because of the presence of police officers in the cockpit.
"Impress buddies"
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Facts for which they risk ten years in prison, they must hear it, "hammers the prosecutor. The young men apologize for the officers' trauma, which evokes stubborn insomnia. They emphasize the "group effect", the desire "to impress friends", ensure that they did not want "to physically attack the police". Timid regrets, but no explanation as to the reasons for this passage to the act. Police say they felt "anti-cop hatred." "If we went out it was over for us, they would have lynched us," says the passenger.
"Without a security force, there is no demonstration, they are not there to fight ideas but to allow them to be expressed," the prosecutor's office said. The police are there for the demonstration to take place." The link between the anger against the extreme right and the degradation of the municipal police car will never be explained by the young men. The Public Prosecutor's Office acknowledges the difficult integration of these young people, none of whom are currently working but some of whom have professional projects. "To put their foot in the stirrup", they were required to work or undergo training as well as to participate at their own expense in a citizenship course.
