Four 17-year-old minors and a 19-year-old major suspected of assaulting the mayor of the rural town of Miribel-Les-Echelles (Isère) were placed in police custody on Wednesday, the Grenoble prosecutor's office said.
Their custody for "violence against the mayor of Miribel-Les-Echelles" will be extended until the evening, or even Thursday morning, said deputy prosecutor Boris Duffau.
These five young people do not live in the small town of some 1,700 inhabitants located in the Chartreuse natural regional park, according to the prosecution. Some live in Moirans and Saint-Jean-de Moirans, about twenty kilometers from the scene of the attack.
According to the regional daily Dauphiné Libéré, they are already known to the courts for various offenses.
"To attack a mayor is to attack the Republic"
The assault took place on the evening of July 27. Williams Dufour, a 51-year-old city councilor, was in a meeting with two city councilors when he heard the sounds of scooters and then fireworks in the village square.
The mayor, announcing his function, then asked the teenagers to "stop their nuisance". Firecrackers are prohibited during this period of drought. The youngsters had not complied: one of them threatened Williams Dufour with fireworks, which sought to subdue him but was burned, while another hit him in the face, according to the reports. information from the prosecution. "You are the mayor of a village of bouseux", had launched one of the attackers.
The city councilor suffered from "wounds on the face, on one hand and [from] a burn on the other hand," according to firefighters. Slightly injured, he received seven days of temporary incapacity for work (ITT).
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An investigation was then opened, conducted by the Meylan research brigade and the gendarmes of the Saint-Laurent-du-Pont brigade.
I give my full support to the mayor of Saint-Philippe-d'Aiguille, in Gironde, violently attacked last night. I condemn with the greatest firmness this violence against an elected representative of the Republic.
To attack a mayor is to attack the Republic.
The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin spoke on Twitter following this attack, believing that "to attack a mayor is to attack the Republic".
“What struck me is that these young people hated me, even though we don't know each other! “, For his part confided the mayor to Dauphiné Libéré. But the city councilor, who is exercising his first mandate, had also assured not to “feel discouraged by this incident”.