Le Figaro Nantes
Blood has flowed in the old chocolate factory. A 28-year-old man was referred to the Nantes prosecutor's office on Tuesday morning after confessing to being the attacker of an 18-year-old Somali man, who was found seriously injured on the night of December 23 and 24. Lying unconscious and smeared with blood, inside a squat on the Ile de Nantes, the young man was found by firefighters dispatched to the scene in the middle of the night and then immediately transported to the nearby University Hospital. Received this weekend in a very worrying condition, his vital prognosis is no longer engaged.
Brawl
The young Somali man was reportedly injured during a brawl on Saturday night. "Angry and drunk, he was looking for trouble with the other squatters and attacked them with a wooden table leg," a police source told Le Figaro, recounting the account of the witnesses interviewed. Once disarmed, however, the young man found himself cornered, and from the initial aggressor, he thus became a victim." Two suspected squatters, aged 28 and 26, were taken into custody on Sunday. The youngest was cleared of any wrongdoing and released on Tuesday. The eldest - also an asylum seeker - is expected to appear in court immediately on a delayed basis in February.
This violent altercation took place inside the abandoned premises of the former Castelanne chocolate factory on Quai Rhuys. The workshop, which closed in the spring of 2022 due to a lack of buyers, is now home to a squat of about forty people, including a group of Somalis. This presence is indicated by several "Somaliland" tags now covering the former front of the building.