Never seen.
In the memory of police officers and farmers, the Agricultural Show had never been the scene, for the arrival of a head of state, of clashes between CRS and demonstrators within its very premises.
The context of great anger among farmers foreshadowed a complicated visit this Saturday for Emmanuel Macron.
But to imagine law enforcement in helmets and shields in hand trying to contain angry farmers, never.
“The situation is out of control”
“
I have never seen this
,” confirms to AFP the national secretary of the CRS Alliance and former head of security groups for the president and the Prime Minister, Johann Cavallero.
“
When it gets to this point, the situation is out of control
,” believes this former police officer.
And yet, noted an expert on the visits of high-ranking personalities to the Salon, "
it was no surprise this anger, exacerbated by the invitation of the Uprisings of the Earth to the presidential debate
."
“
This lack of anticipation is incomprehensible
.”
Usually, mobile forces are deployed around the Salon grounds.
“
This is the protocol for the head of state
”, it is also the case for other political figures such as the Prime Minister.
The situation got out of hand shortly after 8 a.m., while Emmanuel Macron was in a room on the 1st floor of the Porte de Versailles exhibition center with agricultural union representatives.
At that moment, farmers from the FNSEA and Rural Coordination forced the entrance gates to the show.
Gates guarded by the Salon's private security.
“
For several years, responsibility for guarding the gates has been entrusted to private security personnel
,” confirmed the CRS Alliance manager.
Should this entrance have been better monitored?
Problem of “coordination between forces”
At the same time, four CRS companies had been mobilized since 6 a.m. near the Parc des Expositions.
And two others came as reinforcements in the morning.
There were also mobile gendarme companies.
Two forces which are well used to working together in law enforcement operations.
This Saturday, plainclothes police officers from the Paris police headquarters, police officers from CRS 8, mounted law enforcement officers, etc. were also present. In total, nearly 1,000 officials were mobilized.
“
There was a mistake with crossing the entry barriers.
Afterwards, everyone kept order inside.
And there arose a problem of coordination between the forces
,” analyzes Johann Cavallero.
At the same time, “
the CRS were prohibited from using tear gas because of the animals
,” several members of the police told AFP.
However, farmers reported on news channels the very brief use of tear gas.
For several hours, intermittently, there were farmers violently pushing the police who themselves were pushing them back vigorously, in the midst of panicking animals.
“
It’s a stroller.
We cannot do anything else in a closed environment such as the Salon,
” explained the police unionist, adding that if the police had put on their helmets, it was to protect themselves from the various projectiles thrown by the farmers (clods of earth , eggs, etc.).
Three arrests
Finally, never has an inauguration of the Salon by a head of state taken place more than four hours after the scheduled time, with the main hall, that of the animals, closed to the public at the opening.
Other presidents have had to face whistles, boos and shoving at the Salon, like Nicolas Sarkozy or François Hollande.
But their intensity was much less.
Nicolas Sarkozy got angry with a visitor who had refused to shake his hand, throwing his famous “screw you, you idiot”, which has since remained in the memories.
François Hollande had been whistled and booed.
Jacques Chirac was like a fish in water in this universe.
“
On Saturday, the tension was at a paroxysmal level
,” summarized a regular at the Salon.
According to a report from the Paris prosecutor's office at 3:30 p.m., three individuals were arrested within the confines of the show for "
violence against a person holding public authority
".
The arrest was not followed by police custody, but by a free hearing.
The individuals will be summoned by the courts shortly.