Le Figaro Nice
Dressed in black and equipped with red paint, two individuals came to vandalize the window of the LGBTQIA+ center in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), Sunday afternoon, by writing the homophobic tag “Nik les pd (sic)”.
Shortly after the incident, the municipal police managed to arrest the two suspects who have since been in police custody.
It concerns a 17-year-old minor and a 20-year-old adult, both of French nationality and with no known history,
Le Figaro
learned from a police source.
After writing this insult, the two individuals tried to flee before being chased by the center coordinator, who was at his office at the same time, around 2 p.m.
Alerted by the noise, the latter managed to catch up with them before receiving a tear gas bomb in the face from one of the two protagonists.
They tried to escape again before being found by the police.
The minor also had a brass knuckle on him.
“We will not back down”
The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi (Horizons), said he was
“scandalized”
by this homophobic tag on the window of the LGBTQIA+ center of Nice Côte d'Azur, located rue de Roquebillière.
“Hate and discrimination, in all its forms, have no place in our city
,” he added on his Threads account.
These individuals must be heavily sanctioned
,” he said.
The coordinator filed a complaint and the center reserves the right to file a civil suit, they said in a press release, welcoming
“the responsiveness”
of the police teams.
For the Nice center, this incident
“reminds the extent to which LGBT phobias remain present in society
,” they added.
And to warn:
“We say it firmly to the people who want to attack us: we will not back down, we will face it and we will fight back”
.